Driving the scalability of DNA-based information storage systems

The extreme density of DNA presents a compelling advantage over current storage media; however, in order to reach practical capacities, new approaches for organizing and accessing information are needed. Here we use chemical handles to selectively extract unique files from a complex database of DNA mimicking 5 TB of data and design and implement a nested file address system that increases the theoretical maximum capacity of DNA storage systems by five orders of magnitude. These advancements enable the development and future scaling of DNA-based data storage systems with reasonable modern capacities and file access capabilities.