Helium-filled hard disks will lead to higher capacities

[BrightBlessings]

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (HGST), which is now a subsidiary of hard drive manufacturer Western Digital, announced yesterday that it will soon be bringing to market a sealed hard disk drive filled with helium instead of air.

Helium-filled hard disks will lead to higher capacities | Ars Technica

 

[Layback Bear]

I think this is just a stop gap to try and extend the market place life of hard drives a few years.

 

[FuturDreamz]

It would be funny if it affected audio files stored on it.

 

[GeneO]

Wouldn't Hydrogen be even better?

 

[Layback Bear]

Hydrogen explodes quiet easily. Hindenburg disaster - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[FuturDreamz]

Hydrogen explodes quiet easily. Hindenburg disaster - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Would bring a whole new meaning to the name "Deathstar"

 

[Layback Bear]

It would spread your computer all over the room with some entertaining noises and flames.

 

[bobkn]

Hydrogen explodes quiet easily. Hindenburg disaster - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Actually, it doesn't.

Hydrogen plus oxygen, on the other hand...

 

[spencer1]

Hydrogen explodes quiet easily. Hindenburg disaster - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Talk about a disk crash.

 

[Phone Man]

I have five of those disks in my PC from a beta test program. The biggest problem is my PC keeps floating away and I have to tie it down. Does make for a very light Laptop.

Jim

 

[FuturDreamz]

Hydrogen explodes quiet easily. Hindenburg disaster - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Actually, it doesn't.

Hydrogen plus oxygen, on the other hand...

So all you need to do is never let the air seal break.

Older drives would be incredibly dangerous.

 

[bobkn]

Hydrogen explodes quiet easily. Hindenburg disaster - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Actually, it doesn't.

Hydrogen plus oxygen, on the other hand...

So all you need to do is never let the air seal break.

Older drives would be incredibly dangerous.

Let's not get carried away here. A few cubic inches of hydrogen wouldn't pose much of a threat.

When I was a teen, I used to play with hydrogen quite a bit. I once filled a small (1 quart, maybe) plastic bag with it, plus some air. I laid it on the cellar floor, and tossed on a lit match. I was surprised at how loud the bang was. (Scared my mother, upstairs, badly.) The concrete floor wasn't marked.

I imagine that the drives would be filled with helium for engineering purposes, rather than safety. Helium has a much higher thermal conductivity than air; I don't know how H2 compares.

 

[jimbo45]

Hydrogen explodes quiet easily. Hindenburg disaster - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Actually, it doesn't.

Hydrogen plus oxygen, on the other hand...

Hi there
The Ultimate re-cycling system -- H2O ===> Water

Can using sunlight convert back to O2 and Hydrogen -- again use as Fuel product again H2O

What a great system. !!!

Cheers
jimbo

 

[King Arthur]

I think this is just a stop gap to try and extend the market place life of hard drives a few years.

As great as SSDs are, HDDs still outpace SSDs in capacity and "byte-per-buck" by a great margin (unless SSDs have somehow achieved 2~3TB per unit at affordable prices?). I don't see HDDs going out of fashion any time soon.

 

[Layback Bear]

I have five of those disks in my PC from a beta test program. The biggest problem is my PC keeps floating away and I have to tie it down. Does make for a very light Laptop.

Jim

I can see at Micky D's hot spot with a bunch of laptops floating around. Someone will come up with laptop anchors to sell.

 

[GeneO]

Hydrogen explodes quiet easily. Hindenburg disaster - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

LOL. Youd be able to really secure erase it

 

[Colonel Travis]

Higher capacities and also higher prices for drives and everything else.
The supply of helium is decreasing, not increasing. We might be seriously screwed in a decade.

 

[lehnerus2000]

Higher capacities and also higher prices for drives and everything else.
The supply of helium is decreasing, not increasing. We might be seriously screwed in a decade.

Nuclear waste produces Alpha particles (i.e. Helium).

 

[RitualJman]

I have five of those disks in my PC from a beta test program. The biggest problem is my PC keeps floating away and I have to tie it down. Does make for a very light Laptop.

Jim

That's one way to make a computer lighter i guess. As far as storage capacities, I don't believe that taking the air out and putting Helium in to a hard drive will increase the amount of storage in a hard drive.

RitualJman