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Seagate now shipping seven-platter, helium-filled 10TB hard drive

froggyboy604

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Seagate is now shipping its 10TB helium-filled hard drive in volume, and it’s hit this target without using performance-penalizing technologies like SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording). While early high-capacity drives used SMR (a technology in which part of each track is overlaid atop the other, resembling shingles), it penalizes drive writes compared with non-shingled perpendicular recording. SMR boosts densities, but it hurts read performance, and more recent drives from all vendors have moved back towards conventional perpendicular recording.

Helium-sealed hard drives have been gradually making their way into data centers and enterprise drives. At 10TB, Seagate is pushing the envelope on absolute drive capacity as well, with seven drive platters and 14 heads in total.

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10TB is a lot of space for a hard drive.
 
ummmm, helium-filled? What do they mean by that?
 
Demon_Skeith said:
ummmm, helium-filled? What do they mean by that?
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The inside of the drive is filled with helium instead of regular air like oxygen, and other gases found in the air people breathe on earth. Helium is lighter than regular air, so I guest the performance and reliability maybe better than regular hard drive.
 
Demon_Skeith said:
Huh, I thought these things were made without air or something like that? Vacuum sealed is what I'm saying.
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The hard drive is assembled in a clean room with very clean air with no dust, hair, and dirt in it.

I read online that some hard drive have a hole with an air filter to keep the hard drive air clean, and help with cooling. The air inside a drive also works at lifting the hard drive read and write head of the drive circular platter when the platters are spinning at a fast speed.

What is the purpose of the holes marked “Do Not Cover” on hard drives?

It allows for equalization of air pressure between the inside and outside of the drive. While it is not a complete pass-through of outside air into the HDD internals, there is a diaphragm filter inside the hole that allows the air pressure to equalize.

If the drive were completely sealed, operating at altitudes significantly different from those the drive was manufactured and sealed at would cause problems and increase the likelihood of catastrophic failures.

This system works in much the same way as the eustachian tubes that allow our ears internal pressures to equalize, preventing the explosion of our ear drums.

UPDATE: Per Moab's correction, it's a filter, not a diaphragm. The way it works and the reason it is included remains the same.

Its a filter not a diaphragm, at least on the few hundred I have disassembled. Air actually does move in and out of the hard drive when temps vary. – Moab Dec 16 '11 at 21:07

Source
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Demon_Skeith said:
I know they have to be made in a clean room as even a hair or a flake of skin could completely kill the disk which is a fascinating process.
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I think small particles smoke from a lit cigarette or a burning candle could also damage a hard drive if the rubber seal or air filter on the hard drive fails.
 
froggyboy604 said:
I think small particles smoke from a lit cigarette or a burning candle could also damage a hard drive if the rubber seal or air filter on the hard drive fails.
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there really is no such thing as clean air in this world anymore, if the seal fails your HDD is good as toast.
 
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