Western Digital Adds Helium To Its Hard Drives

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Aside from making 6TB drives possible, I wonder if the Helium makes Western Digital's new hard drives give off a goofy high pitched whine now? :D

All that drag from the air limits the number of disk platters that can be stacked inside a single drive. Right now, the standard calls for five platters inside a one-inch-high drive enclosure. Building a sealed drive that’s packed with helium eliminates that drag, and thus allowed for platters to be packed inside the enclosure more tightly. Where you once could fit only five platters, you can now fit seven. That means more storage capacity per drive. The first drive out of the chute has a capacity of six terabytes, versus four for conventional drives.
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Bah. Should have used Hydrogen. Call them the new Hindendrives.

"Did you hear about Paul in IT being killed? Freakin' RAID 10 array crash."
 
This is not gonna be good...

All your MP3s will sound like the chipmunks...;)
 
Sure it makes it "possible", but every platter adds more weight (strain on the motor at start-up), heat, noise, and more possible contact points (additional heads).

There's a reason why single platter drives with 1 or 2 heads usually last much longer then an equivalent multi-platter drive.
 
I wonder how well these will be sealed. And how many of these Newegg is going to ship as bare drives in large, empty cardboard boxes
 
So how many helium drives do you guys think it would take to float a lawn chair with a person in it?

I can see it now - I'm gonna be famous like Larry Walters!!!
 
Qinsp said:
Bah. Should have used Hydrogen. Call them the new Hindendrives.

"Did you hear about Paul in IT being killed? Freakin' RAID 10 array crash."
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I'd like to take this opportunity to point out my grandmother saw one of them blow up over Crystal Palace as a girl. Living history!
 
ml_paladin888 said:
forgive my ignorance, but instead of filling the drives with a gas, why not make them a vacuum?
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this same question was asked on engadget

quote from some guy who answered it: "They don't work in vacuum. Fluid interaction between spinning platter, gas and the heads creates an air bearing effect that holds the heads at a precisely determined (for a given linear velocity) height away from the disc. It's a stable system, so any slight vibration will be quickly compensated. Without a fluid filling, the heads would crash into the platter."
 
ml_paladin888 said:
forgive my ignorance, but instead of filling the drives with a gas, why not make them a vacuum?
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Case would have to withstand atmospheric pressure, making it heavier.

Its why a coke can will crush into nothing if you vacuum the air out of it. Fill it with helium though, and can stands up just fine.
 
If they filled them with CO2, would they get massive tax credits?
 
Guess this went under the radar.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...congress-just-averted-a-global-helium-crisis/

The helium cliff is no longer nigh! On Thursday, the House and Senate both approved a bill that would keep the Federal Helium Reserve open for years to come. (President Obama has indicated he will sign the bill.) Lawmakers have essentially averted a fiasco of their own making.
On top of that, the bill would also end, slowly, the Helium Reserve's practice of giving away the gas for below-market rates, a practice that has led to excessive waste and has prevented the private sector from developing its own sources of the scarce resource.
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So they get to pat themselves on the back for passing basic legislation and now charge more for Helium at the same time! Way to go useless fucking Government!
 
Because the He molecule is a single tiny inert atom with neutral charge, Helium will diffuse through solid materials, from balloons to stainless steel tank walls. Long-term confinement of Helium is therefore a problem, so I'd be wary of an HDD that relied on helium until they have proven themselves for a few years.
 
Outamyhead said:
Yep, lets keep using that finite, and getting rarer every day gas.
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New helium is constantly being generated by radioactive processes: an alpha particle is helium nucleus without an electrons around it, which quickly becomes a helium atom by capturing an electron. Lots of naturally-occurring radioactive materials emit alpha particles.

Also, the solar wind includes helium.
 
Great, now we have to worry about gas leaking out of our HDs and rendering moot 6TB worth of data. I'll let somebody else test these for a few years.
 
aquabusa said:
So if it's created through decay (alpha particle) of radioactive material, can't we make more using our vast supply of radioactive waste? Seems simple enough; one alpha particle, add a splash (two) electrons, done- helium. :D
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And in a few hundred million years, voila, your investment paid off.
 
BladeVenom said:
Which is worse for leaking? H2 or He?
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Helium. The Hydrogen molecule contains two hydrogen atoms and is much larger than the helium molecule which is just a lone helium atom. Therefore a hydrogen molecule H2 is about around one angstroms across while a helium atom is about 0.3 angstroms across. It is all very fuzzy, since the boundaries of atoms and molecules are not sharply defined.

Also, the electrons in helium atoms are more tightly bound to the nucleus than the electrons in hydrogen, so the helium electrons don't get tangled up as easily with the electrons in the solid matter as the hydrogen electrons do.
 
Thanks for the great info about Hydrogen and Helium. Do you think that companies are gonna do similar stuff to other pieces of gear in computers? Like the processor or video card.
 
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