Table 1.

General specifications of the most commonly used next-generation sequencing (NGS) platforms as compared to Sanger sequencing

	454 GS FLX +	454 Junior	Illumina HiSeq	Illumina MiSeq	Ion Torrent PGM	Sanger ABI 3730xl
Max. read length	700 bp	400 bp	2 × 150 bp	2 × 300 bp	400 bp	1–1.5 kb
Max. output/run	450–700 Mb	35 Mb	150–180 Gb	13.2–15 Gb	1.2–2 Gb	96 Kb
Max. reads/run	700 k–1 M S-R	70 K S-R	1.2 Billion PE-R	44–50 M PE-R	4–5.5 M S-R	96 S-R
Time per run	23 h	10 h	40 h	65 h	7.3 h	4 h

S-R, single reads; PE-R, paired-end reads; Information in this table was obtained from manufacturers’ web pages accessed on 7 January 2014.