DNA and silica-coated magnetic particles entangle and form visible aggregates under chaotropic conditions with a rotating magnetic field, in a manner that enables quantification of DNA by image analysis. As a means of exploring the mechanism of this DNA quantitation assay, nanoscale SiO2-coated Fe304 （Fe3O4@SiO2） particles are synthesized via a solvothermal method. Characterization of the particles defines them to be -200 nm in diameter with a large surface area （141.89 m2/g）, possessing superparamagnetic properties and exhibiting high saturation magnetization （38 emu/g）. The synthesized Fe3O4@SiO2 nanoparticles are exploited in the DNA quantification assay and, as predicted, the nanoparticles provide better sensitivity than commercial microscale Dynabeads for quantifying DNA, with a detection limit of 4 kilobase-pair fragments of human DNA. Their utility is proven using nanoparticle DNA quantification to guide efficient polymerase chain reaction （PCR） amplification of short tandem repeat loci for human identification.