There are several well-known advantages of using synthetic DNA for cold-data storage, such as higher density, reduced energy consumption, and durability compared with the standard storage mediums used for the same purpose. The enablement of this technology in the market involves the development of cost-effective DNA synthesizers that can write the data at an appropriate throughput speed and a CODEC able to handle data from different synthesis and sequencing technologies. In the last two years, the Prometheus project, a partnership between Lenovo and IPT Institute in Brazil, has significantly progressed in developing DNA writing machines and a versatile CODEC. This presentation offers a comprehensive overview of the DNA data storage pipeline, providing real-world experiences from data encoding to storage and retrieval. Our primary goal is to provide the audience with valuable insights and practical knowledge regarding coding and decoding techniques, specifically emphasizing our designed error correction architecture. The CODEC developed includes not only the standard methods for storage systems, such as encoding and decoding algorithms, addressing, and error correction coding, but also comprises the application of standard techniques in the bioinformatics field known as sanitizing process, such as the removal of low-quality reads, adapter removal and filter for contaminants, followed by alignment, and clustering of sequenced reads. The last released version of the Lenovo DNA Data Storage CODEC, named Pantheon, is already applying the Sector scheme proposed by the SNIA DNA Archive Rosetta Stone (DARS) technical working group. Exciting results from experiments with this CODEC will be demonstrated and discussed. Finally, our presentation will inspire participants and provide a comprehensive overview of the complexity of implementing coding and adaptative decoding techniques for a functional DNA data storage system, including practical considerations, potential roadblocks, and viable solutions, drawing from our real-world experiences.
Pantheon DNA Data Storage CODEC: Experiences, Challenges, and Innovations
- Lenovo DNA Data Storage CODEC advances
- Tests with the TWG DNA Archive Rosetta Stone (DARS) Sector Scheme
- Challenges and new proposals in processing DNA-sequenced reads using state-of-the-art computational methods
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DNA lacks many key attributes found in other traditional storage media types including locality and addressability.
- Joel ChristnerDell Inc.
Users of DNA as a digital data storage medium must have confidence that they can reliably recover their stored data, and to understand the competing capabilities and claims of codecs, readers, writ
Synthetic DNA-based data storage has been on the rise as a candidate for Data Storage due to its longer shelf life and higher data density.
- Bruno Marinaro VeronaInstitute for Technological Research
Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) as a storage medium with high density and long-term preservation properties can satisfy the requirement of archival storage for rapidly increased digital volume.
A new error correction code for DNA data storage is presented.
The long-term retention and backup requirements of many organizations continue to grow as their data estate grows.
The demand for data storage continues to grow exponentially with the overall data storage temperature cooling down with most data becoming cold after one month and subsequently infrequently accesse
The demand for data storage continues to grow exponentially with the overall data storage temperature cooling down with most data becoming cold after one month and subsequently infrequently accesse
Cold data holds significant value for regulatory compliance, audits, legal necessities, and disaster recovery, even though it's not frequently accessed.
SNIA Developer Conference
September 15-17, 2025
SDC 2025 is brought to you by SNIA. SNIA is an industry association committed to its mission of worldwide leadership developing and promoting architectures, standards, education and vendor-neutral collaboration.
