Toshiba Unveils First FC-MAMR HDD: 18 TB, Helium Filled
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Re: Toshiba Unveils First FC-MAMR HDD: 18 TB, Helium Filled
#2I remember hearing somewhere that helium will slowly leak through whatever vessel you try to contain it with. I wonder if that (is true, and if so whether it) imposes some kind of maximum life on these drives. Or maybe this is only hydrogen that is this problematic.
Re: Toshiba Unveils First FC-MAMR HDD: 18 TB, Helium Filled
#3This seems like a terrible use of helium from a sustainability perspective. There are some things that helium is truly essential for, like low temperature cryogenics and neutron detection. Our supply is finite and largely tied to natural gas reserves. When helium leaks out it floats into space and is gone forever. Why does the atmosphere in the drive absolutely have to be helium? Why not any other mix of inert gases at optimal pressure for a thin air cushion?
Helium is also literally the leakiest thing you can try to contain. It will even diffuse out through the metal itself given enough time. Not trying to go full tinfoil hat here, but filling equipment with helium in this way seems like an effective way to cap drive life by time elapsed rather than amount of actual use.
Re: Toshiba Unveils First FC-MAMR HDD: 18 TB, Helium Filled
#4This seems like a terrible use of helium from a sustainability perspective. There are some things that helium is truly essential for, like low temperature cryogenics and neutron detection. Our supply is finite and largely tied to natural gas reserves. When helium leaks out it floats into space and is gone forever. Why does the atmosphere in the drive absolutely have to be helium? Why not any other mix of inert gases…
my first thought was what happens when it leaks out?
Re: Toshiba Unveils First FC-MAMR HDD: 18 TB, Helium Filled
#5This seems like a terrible use of helium from a sustainability perspective. There are some things that helium is truly essential for, like low temperature cryogenics and neutron detection. Our supply is finite and largely tied to natural gas reserves. When helium leaks out it floats into space and is gone forever. Why does the atmosphere in the drive absolutely have to be helium? Why not any other mix of inert gases…
The amount used in these drives is minuscule, akin to a single party balloon. Given these drives are to be used for many years at a time, I'll go after them after I manage to stop all the birthday balloons.
Re: Toshiba Unveils First FC-MAMR HDD: 18 TB, Helium Filled
#6This seems like a terrible use of helium from a sustainability perspective. There are some things that helium is truly essential for, like low temperature cryogenics and neutron detection. Our supply is finite and largely tied to natural gas reserves. When helium leaks out it floats into space and is gone forever. Why does the atmosphere in the drive absolutely have to be helium? Why not any other mix of inert gases…
Backblaze did a blog post about helium drives in 2018:
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/helium-filled-hard-drive-fail...
Some interesting stuff in there, like the SMART data element for helium status. And this quote, after they had 3 years in with helium drives:
"To date only one HGST drive has reported a value of less than 100, with multiple readings between 94 and 99."
But, then, later, this quote:
"My prediction is that the helium drives will eventually prove to have a lower AFR. Why? Drive Days."
Would be cool if a Backblaze employee could chime in with what they've seen since.
Re: Toshiba Unveils First FC-MAMR HDD: 18 TB, Helium Filled
#7This seems like a terrible use of helium from a sustainability perspective. There are some things that helium is truly essential for, like low temperature cryogenics and neutron detection. Our supply is finite and largely tied to natural gas reserves. When helium leaks out it floats into space and is gone forever. Why does the atmosphere in the drive absolutely have to be helium? Why not any other mix of inert gases…
Thought i would expand on this with some order of magnitude leak rate guesses. For a standard small lab vacuum system with viton o-rings something like 10-7 mbarliters/sec (same as atmcc/sec) would be considered acceptable. Assuming the drive is pure helium at half pressure with this leak, the loss would be on the scale of 3 cc/year. The rate will decrease as the partial pressure decreases, but once this becomes significant im guessing the drive is already toast.
I would also note that the helium will leak out before atmosphere leaks in. If the drives are well sealed they should fail due to lack of pressure causing head crash.
Re: Toshiba Unveils First FC-MAMR HDD: 18 TB, Helium Filled
#8This seems like a terrible use of helium from a sustainability perspective. There are some things that helium is truly essential for, like low temperature cryogenics and neutron detection. Our supply is finite and largely tied to natural gas reserves. When helium leaks out it floats into space and is gone forever. Why does the atmosphere in the drive absolutely have to be helium? Why not any other mix of inert gases…
Tbh I would like to see some calculations of how much helium there is in the drive, a quick bit of napkin math makes it seem like you can make around 5*10^10 drives with the gas from a single field in the US on a single day, assuming that it is at 1 atm pressure, though I don't think that would move much more than one order of magnitude at most. Though your other point still stands.
Re: Toshiba Unveils First FC-MAMR HDD: 18 TB, Helium Filled
#9This seems to have come out of no where.
Helium is an old trick, but MAMR / HAMR (energy assist technology, either microwave or heat) was a big announcement from Seagate and WD.
I didn't know Toshiba was also working on the tech.
Re: Toshiba Unveils First FC-MAMR HDD: 18 TB, Helium Filled
#10I remember hearing somewhere that helium will slowly leak through whatever vessel you try to contain it with. I wonder if that (is true, and if so whether it) imposes some kind of maximum life on these drives. Or maybe this is only hydrogen that is this problematic.
No expert, but it seems to make sense that helium is particularly hard to contain based on molecular diameter:
Hydrogen 2.75 Angstroms
Helium 2.18
Argon 3.67
Oxygen 3.64
Nitrogen 3.64
“Air” 3.74