1. A method for determining the sequence of a nucleic acid comprising: a) receiving a collection of data strings from a nucleic acid sequence dataset wherein said data strings comprise a plurality of characters, b) generating a Burrows Wheeler transform on a first collection of characters, wherein the first collection of characters comprises a first character from each of said data strings, c) merging a second collection of characters with said first collection of characters to form a merged collection of characters, wherein the second collection of characters comprises a second character from each of said data strings, d) augmenting the Burrows Wheeler transform from the merged first and second collection of characters, and e) determining the sequence of the nucleic acid based on the Burrows Wheeler transform of the nucleic acid.