6TB Helium Filled - Will They Be Recoverable?

[fzabkar]

Also i wonder what the effect... such as chemical reactions over time, hardening, breaking down... of helium on things like PCB, solder, plastic, metal inside the drive, if any ...

Helium is inert. It doesn't react with anything.

[warnerr]

doesn't react but is particularly hard to contain. Leakage is assured over time. If its enough time it may be a leap forward. Somehow I doubt they will capture enough gas 'for life'.

[fzabkar]

I was trying to find out more about Hitachi's HelioSeal patent when I saw this:

http://www.ivoclarvivadent.us/en/produc ... /helioseal

Apparently there is another product by the same name, but it's for dental care.

[fzabkar]

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/2 ... from_hgst/

Re: If I remeber right this was done 35+ years ago

Yes HP did use a fix head Disc drive in the early 70s filled with helium I think made by Vermount, as well as a fixed head drum. I went to Tehran once to fix one. Both about 3mbs with microsecond track switching, good for virtual memory catching. Cant remember if it had 128 heads plus some spares or 512. The Computer Museum at Bletchley park may have one. No tank, that was in the service kit to refill it. Have to check my CE handbook as well.

[HaQue]

I agree with the guy that basically said new things will come, people will get excited, most of it will be wasted noise, by the time the noise subsides, something will replace it.

maybe I just havent been paying attention enough, but it seems the 1TB 3D flash chips rumblings have gone quiet, strange it isnt mentioned around these 6TB heliums.. I would have thought a SSD with 7 1TB 3d flash chips(6 for storage, 1 for the ECC LOL!) would be cheaper to produce than these heliums..

[thatdellguy]

Helium, here today and gone tomorrow....

[Frozwire]

It might be possible that this drive can run in an atmosphere just like as usual conventional drives do without helium at short period time span (at least enough to recover data).

[gtd4242]

It might be possible that this drive can run in an atmosphere just like as usual conventional drives do without helium at short period time span (at least enough to recover data).

That was my thinking as well. Not sure how it would affect flying height, but as long as the heads receive the same lift, it should function I would think.

[guru]

Flying hight will change. It will fly higher with loss of helium = servo / data errors

[fzabkar]

How would the increased air turbulence affect the flight of the heads?

[guru]

There will by higher TMR too

[fzabkar]

There will by higher TMR too :)

TMR = Track Mis-Registration?

[Matiw]

Thereby making the HDD slower as it takes the servo-controller more time to get to the center of the track.

There will by higher TMR too