HGST announces world's first 10TB enterprise HDD

[HEXUS]

The firm says the drive will set a new standard in TCO, server and storage density.

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[mikerr]

Still don't like the idea of helium filled HDDs

[iworrall]

Still don't like the idea of helium filled HDDs

Shouldn't you have posted that in a high squeaky voice?

[CampGareth]

Still don't like the idea of helium filled HDDs

There are some funky uses, for instance you can use mineral oil immersion to cool a sealed HDD which means you can immerse the entire server and forget about it. Admittedly you could seal it with air inside but meh.

[aidanjt]

Still don't like the idea of helium filled HDDs

What's wrong with helium?

[AlexKitch]

Isn't pure Helium extremely expensive? I wonder how much they actually put into a hard disk.

[miniyazz]

I'm not convinced that a 1x10^15 unrecoverable error rate is entirely sufficient but in conjunction with redundancy perhaps it's not too bad.

[zap117]

Still don't like the idea of helium filled HDDs

I see what you mean. It would be interesting to know what the long term reliability of these are in terms of how much helium leaks out (if any at all). But alas, they need helium to jam in all of those platters so close together. Unless... you were talking about helium being a limited resource, which is a totally different issue.

[DanceswithUnix]

I'm not convinced that a 1x10^15 unrecoverable error rate is entirely sufficient but in conjunction with redundancy perhaps it's not too bad.

These are shingled drives, intended for backup and video storage use not for general file storage.

I see what you mean. It would be interesting to know what the long term reliability of these are in terms of how much helium leaks out (if any at all). But alas, they need helium to jam in all of those platters so close together. Unless... you were talking about helium being a limited resource, which is a totally different issue.

That was my first thought as well, though have you ever had one of those metallic balloons? They stay inflated for months to the point that you are sick of them bobbing around the house. That is a toy filled with helium at pressure, I doubt that the hard drives have any real pressure in them so the helium will diffuse rather than leak. If the helium isn't at pressure they one balloon full will probably fill a lot of hard drives, and seems a far better use.

[mikerr]

Yeah I was thinking long term, leak = failure.

[DanceswithUnix]

Yeah I was thinking long term, leak = failure.

It sounds like the helium helps them run cooler and use less power, don't see why it would lead to instant failure. The helium only has to stay in for 5 years, after that the drives will be junked anyway as these are aimed at the data centre.

[evs]

I wonder how long the RAID low priority rebuilds would take on that....

[crossy]

There are some funky uses, for instance you can use mineral oil immersion to cool a sealed HDD which means you can immerse the entire server and forget about it. Admittedly you could seal it with air inside but meh.

Thought the whole idea of the helium filling was to reduce drag, so more/denser platters. Surely oil filling is going to make drag a lot worse than just air-fill?

(Yes, I know that this might be a n00b question - I don't design HDD's ... I only fill 'em!)

[Kevsta]

Helium does have some issues, for one it actually will diffuse through solid materials. Seals may be gas tight for air, but with Helium in the mix it would leak through the seal. How long I don't know, but I assume that HGST have done the maths.

Still I can understand why people would be concerned.

The other aspect is that most of the worlds Helium is a by product of US natural gas production and most was diverted to the US Strategic Reserves for us in US space applications, and Cold War nuclear technologies & research. The US Strategic reserve is in the process of being sold off, this isn't the end of production as most resonance imaging requires Helium cooling, and that IIRC is one of the biggest uses of Helium. But as long as those gas fields are in production there shouldn't be a problem with supply, however once they are exhausted and closed then there would be an issue with supply.

[ysluxus]

Personally interested in and want to use.

[HavoCnMe]

I'll take 5. Sign me up as a guinea pig.