14 replies to this topic

[torrentthief]

New Largest Hard Drive Will Contain Helium

Posted on September 15, 2012 by Darren McBride

HGST, a division of Western Digital, announced what experts expect will be a 5.6TB 3.5″ form factor hard drive sometime in 2013. The new largest hard drive will contain helium rather than air and will have 7 platters. Helium is 1/7 the density of air, which much less drag on the spinning disks. It also reduces the “fluid flow” forces which buffet the heads and arms.
Disk platter wobble or vibration is a significant factor in limiting hard drive storage density. The spinning motion causes air turbulence, which in turn disrupts both the platter and the read/write head’s ability to remain on track. With helium the turbulence is reduced, allowing the drive to pack more bits onto the platter while still allowing precise head positioning.
HGST also plans to pack 7 platters into the enclosure rather than only the 5 used for current 4TB drives. The helium inside will lead to less power usage and cooler drive operation. The company says power usage is lowered by 23% by using helium and that the drive runs 4 degrees Celsius cooler. Using helium along with heat-assisted magnetic recording may lead to 60TB drives by 2016.
Helium is becoming a scarce commodity, as only 6 companies in the world refine and supply it. It is extracted in small percentages from certain natural gas deposits. Once Helium is released (as when a balloon pops) it escapes into the atmosphere and is gone from earth forever. Today there are only about 15 known sources of helium in the world and 10 of these are in the United States, largely controlled by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Planned and unplanned outages throughout the world along with changes in a U.S. law called the Helium Privatization Act of 1996 (HPA) have impacted these limited supplies. 20% of the entire world’s output of helium is used for MRI machines and about 17% is used in welding. Another chunk is used to manufacture LCD screens. Helium price and availability could become an issue in manufacturing although it is unknown whether the small volumes used in hard drives will significantly impact the supply chain.
HGST plans to concentrate initially on the enterprise and data center market. This, along with the Helium discussion above, suggests the drive will come at a price premium above the desktop drives shipped today.
As for reliability of this new technology, we’ll have to put our trust in the engineers and then see how they do in the field. Very sophisticated and tightly controlled seals will be needed since the molecules are very small and will leak out of the smallest openings easily. We wonder if drives will ever need to be “refilled” to maintain and freshen the helium as is the case with some air conditioning systems. We’ll also have to wait to see whether the drives are robust enough to be used in removable drive backup systems like the RAIDFrame.

Source: http://www.high-rely...contain-helium/

1TB platters have been out for around 1yr now, they are in seagate barracuda 14 and hitachi drives, not sure why they are using 800GB platters.

[flexkeyboard]

[+articuno1au]

[Slugsie]

@flexkeyboard The Hindenburg was filled with Hydrogen, not Helium. One is very stable, the other is very not.

[mikeyx12]

flexkeyboard, on 01 October 2012 - 07:48, said:

*facepalm*

[REM2000]

Slugsie, on 01 October 2012 - 08:06, said:

@flexkeyboard The Hindenburg was filled with Hydrogen, not Helium. One is very stable, the other is very not.

I think it was meant to be lighthearted/jokey

[Pygmy_Hippo]

in b4 moar pr0n

(sorry, i'm off ill and i think the meds are making me type stupid memes!!)

[Simon-]

I wish they could have found something other than Helium, Helium really needs to be saved for the MRIs and not for Birthday balloons/other non-medical purposes.

[Farstrider]

Looks awesome! That said,it would worry me that so much data can be held on one drive!

As an aside regarding the Hindenburg, this was rather interesting


As the Hindenburg came in to Lakehurst on May 6, 1937, there was a storm brewing, and so there was much static electricity in the air - which charged up the aircraft. When the crew dropped the mooring ropes down to the ground, the static electricity was earthed, which set off sparks on the Hindenburg.

The Hindenburg was covered with cotton fabric, that had to be waterproof. So it had been swabbed with cellulose acetate (which happened to be very flammable) that was then covered with aluminium powder (which is used as rocket fuel to propel the Space Shuttle into orbit). Indeed, the aluminium powder was in tiny flakes, which made them very susceptible to sparking. It was inevitable that a charged atmosphere would ignite the flammable skin.

In all of this, the hydrogen was innocent. The Hindenburg burnt with a red flame. Hydrogen burns with an almost invisible bluish flame. In the Hindenburg disaster, as soon as the hydrogen bladders were opened by the flames, the hydrogen inside would have escaped up and away from the burning airship - and it would not have not contributed to the ensuing fire. The hydrogen was totally innocent. In fact, in 1935, a helium-filled airship with an acetate-aluminium skin burned near Point Sur in California with equal ferocity. The Hindenberg disaster was not caused by hydrogen.

The lesson is obvious - the next time you build an airship, don't paint the outside with an inflammable acetate skin dusted with aluminium rocket fuel!!

[.Neo]

REM2000, on 01 October 2012 - 08:34, said:

I think it was meant to be lighthearted/jokey

The best jokes are those that actually have some relevancy to the subject at hand.

[+Crisp]

Why not just seal it with no gas at all. A vacuum is lighter than helium surely?

[p1p3]

Crisps, on 01 October 2012 - 13:10, said:

Why not just seal it with no gas at all. A vacuum is lighter than helium surely?

If I remember correctly the drive head rides on the air above the platter to avoid colliding with it.

[cybertimber2008]

A vacuum has no heat transfer (hint, thermos) so it wouldn't be able to wick away the internal heat.
I could see them sucking some air out. A 50% reduction in air pressure inside should still transfer heat and reduce drag w/o using limited resources (helium)... but you'd still need good seals.

[+littleneutrino]

I wonder if this will confuse folks that believe that the more data you have the heavier the hard drive is. When you put helium in it perhaps it offsets how much data it can hold so the drive will always way the same lol

[p1p3]

cybertimber2008, on 01 October 2012 - 13:28, said:

A vacuum has no heat transfer (hint, thermos) so it wouldn't be able to wick away the internal heat.
I could see them sucking some air out. A 50% reduction in air pressure inside should still transfer heat and reduce drag w/o using limited resources (helium)... but you'd still need good seals.

Helium has very good heat conductivity (0.142 W/(m·K) for helium versus 0.024 W/(m·K) for air). Lowering the air pressure inside would probably decrease it too much.
But the bigger problem here would still be sealing it. Helium is notorious for escaping through most materials. I think that to have it last for five years you would have to use some type of hermetic glass seals (expensive). A 50% vacuum is probably easier to keep but you would still need to use good seals and that will drive the price up.