Helium Filled HDDs?

Hardware Hub Storage
1

so i read an article a little while ago and they were talking about how Hitachi/WD is planning to start selling thier hard drives hermetically sealed with helium inside

they say filling the drives would make companies able to put up to seven platters in one drive and increase storage capacity by 40% (possible making drives up to 7tb in size) and it would also increase speed due to less friction in the casing.

 

im just wondering what u guys think of this and how big u think this will become in the coming years

 

some articles related to it:

http://www.storagereview.com/hgst_demonstrates_7platter_helium_hard_drive_platform

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/storage/display/20120913091202_Western_Digital_s_Division_Announces_Helium_Filled_Hard_Drive_Platform.html

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/09/helium-filled-hard-disks-will-lead-to-higher-capacities/

2

I read about that too, and I see it doing well in the future. I'm sure it will cause the price of normal drives to drop in price too so that will be nice.

3

Most definitely the worst time ever to start doing that, what with the helium prices going way up. Honestly, with technology today I'm sure they will be able to artificially produce some kind of gas similar to helium being that it will be lighter than air and not degrade like oxygen....or be explosive like hydrogen. Which brings to mind, why not just use hydrogen? Oh wait, if any circuitry sparks inside then KURBLAM.

4

i think it would be interesting if they just put the inside of the drives in a vacuum so their is no friction at all.

5

vacuum won't work - some gas is required as this is how the read/write head is made to fly slightly above the platter without touching it

hermetically sealed - just another component that can fail and kill the drive :(

6

pure hydrogen without oxygen there is no problem, it won't burn or explode.

7

The helium shortage is only temporary, they never planned for it to be as popular as it is in production so we though we had supplies for much longer and shut down production facilities, they are already working on this.

8

In theory this works perfectly but with the current shortage of helium this is going to be expencive to manufacture.

9

guess we'll just have to wait and see how much they'll cost