

WD Builds High-Capacity, Helium-Filled HDDs - XERQ
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9231220/Helium_filled_WD_drives_promise_huge_boost_in_capacity?taxonomyId=19&pageNumber=2

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ChuckMcM
Oh this will be fun, the only gas harder to keep inside is hydrogen. While its
absolutely true that you get a huge benefit in head flying by switching to
helium it also means that there is pretty much a guaranteed lifetime cap on
the usefulness of the drives. As someone who tries to run drives 24/7 for 3
years before tossing them this probably makes my life harder. Especially if
the 'failure' mode is that they just get slower and slower as the heads have a
harder and harder time staying on track as other gases migrate inside.

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K2h
ha! that makes me think of failure modes of SSD's.. just getting slower (but
for a different reason). Imagine if the florist who does helium party balloons
starts offering the service to refurbish your HD.

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jdc
Ordinary magnetic platter HDs slow down with age too, though I'm not sure why.

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papercruncher
theory: your outer tracks are filled with data which is older and that you
presumably read less

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tarice
Filling HDDs with Helium seems like a bad idea since the Earth is running out
of Helium.[1]

Increasing prices could very well make the technology infeasible before it
even comes to market.

[1]<http://digitaljournal.com/article/321439>

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jcampbell1
Please stop spreading this "running out of heilium" nonsense. Natural gas
contains plenty of helium, and making LNG produces helium as a byproduct. As
soon as the US Government stops liquidating it's Cold War reserve of helium at
super low prices, every LNG facility will compress the helium and sell it.
Thanks to fracking, and a return of LNG production in the US, there will be
plenty of helium for the foreseeable future.

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richardjordan
Natural gas has single digits percentages of Helium. It's still a finite
resource on sensible timescales (yes radioactive decay replenishes supply
eventually). It has many important uses. There are good reasons to object to
it being squandered in children's party balloons.

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bazzargh
So why not a vacuum? Vacuumed KERS systems rotate an order of magnitude
faster. I get that a KERS system can afford heavier casing than a HD but
still, if your cases can hold _helium_ you ought to be able to hold a
reasonable vacuum too.

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dmm
My understanding is that hard drive heads float over the platters on a cushion
of air. That's why high altitude applications need special sealed hard drives.

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klodolph
Specifically, in a vacuum the heads crash into the platter, damaging both.

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ars
Something doesn't make sense here.

Turbulence is related to viscosity as far as I know.

Viscosity of air: 18.6 micropascal seconds.

Viscosity of helium: 20.0.

For comparison hydrogen is 9.0 and argon is 22.9.

Actually - maybe a higher viscosity is better (it causes the turbulence to die
out)?

But in that case why not use argon? It's cheaper and a LOT easier to contain.

Yet the article talks about light atoms?

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aidenn0
The turbulance is related to viscosity, but the force exerted on the drive
head is related to turbulance and mass. The density of helium is an order of
magnitude lower than the density of air.

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ComputerGuru
The link goes to the second page of a two-page article, here's a better link
(all on one page):

[http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/print/9231220/Helium_...](http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/print/9231220/Helium_filled_WD_drives_promise_huge_boost_in_capacity?taxonomyName=Data+Storage&taxonomyId=19)

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Achshar
So what is the capacity of these new drives? Nowhere in the article it seems
to be mentioned.

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alexchamberlain
This is great.. but there is an international shortage of hydrogen, and
unfortunately, I think MRI scanners should have first dibs. Having said this,
it will be great when nuclear fusion is cracked and there is an abundance of
the stuff.

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gordonguthrie
You mean helium, I presume.

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alexchamberlain
Yes, I am a tool.

