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#20
I checked the specs for the 6TB Greens and they are comparable to the 2TB and 4TB Greens. I also contacted WD about if and when they were going to release a 6TB Black. Their response was that they had no plans on releasing a 6TB Black, which is odd considering they released the 6TB Green. Bummer! I guess are pouring all their resources into their Helium technology in their HGST line. For something so radically new as the Helium drives, methinks I will wait awhile to see how that pans out (and for prices to come down). Helium molecules are tiny and are going to be mighty hard to keep from leaking out over time.
The helium molecule is so small it can directly pass through many materials without the benefit of a leak in a joint.
Western Digital Adds Helium to Enterprise Hard Drives - Arik Hesseldahl - News - AllThingsDThe secret sauce to all this is that the drives are built to be hermetically sealed, which means they’re both perfectly airtight and leakproof. While the science behind doing all this has been well understood for a while, Cordan says that Western Digital is the first to figure how to do it in a repeatable manufacturing process. It adds an extra step or two to the manufacturing process, and thus some cost.
It gets more interesting: Hermetically sealed drives don’t let the helium out, but they also don’t let anything else in, including liquid. That makes them good for use in immersion-cooled data centers. These are small, dense collections of IT gear packed into a box the size of a shipping container and filled to the top with nonconductive liquid that keeps everything running at a constant temperature. (If you didn’t know that this was a thing, you’re not alone, because I didn’t, either.)
They have been hermetically sealed. They've been kept in a #2 mayonnaise jar on Funk and Wagnall's back porch since noon today.
A Guy
You are correct; it only exists as atoms. I didn't take chemistry back in school (half a century ago), opting instead to take accelerated biology. Of course, that means helium can slip through even smaller openings.
Helium will leak through solids that will block most atmospheric gasses. Rubber and Mylar balloons are an example. They will loose all the helium in the helium/air mix they are inflated with in a matter of just a few days. Of course, the helium filled drives have much thicker walls than a balloon but how well will those walls retain helium over, say, two or three years? How well will the seals for wiring leading to the drive motors, drive heads, and head actuators hold up?
I'm not saying these drives absolutely will lose their helium over time but, with any new technology, time can take a toll.