Are HDD's a significant consumer of the world's helium, in the scheme of things? I had thought helium was used only in a few bleeding edge drives, and they went to normal air as the tech matured.
The Race to Seal Helium HDDs (2021)
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Re: The Race to Seal Helium HDDs (2021)
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe magnetism could work. HDD platters take very strong fields to change magnetization these days, so erasing the data with the positioning magnet(s) seems avoidable.
So write too many zeros to your drive, the disk becomes demagnetized, and the head will crash?
With another encoding like Manchester, it wouldn't;-)
Re: The Race to Seal Helium HDDs (2021)
#43"Helium is notoriously difficult to contain. Its atoms are some of the tiniest in the universe." It's a good article, and I learned a lot, but every so often it reads like something an 8th grader would write the night before their paper is due.
And then it swings up and hits you with "a way that it doesn’t scathe the seal" . Plenty of "unscathed" around, but I don't think I ever met the "un"-free word. Reminds me of the P.G.Wodehouse "far from gruntled" ( https://nydamprintsblackandwhite.blogspot.com/2011/05/words-... )
You need to read How I Met My Wife!
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1994/07/25/how-i-met-my-w...
Re: The Race to Seal Helium HDDs (2021)
#44If anyone has a helium drive you can check it's levels - S.M.A.R.T. ID 22
If you are bored I'd be interested to hear what level it's at on old drives.
Like is it still 100% after a year? [edit] I assume the 100/64h means 100% maybe not [1]
https://www.reddit.com/r/windows8/comments/11ndk0o/what_is_c...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Monitoring,_Analysis_and_...
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/wl20q2/just_a_...
Re: The Race to Seal Helium HDDs (2021)
#45"Helium is notoriously difficult to contain. Its atoms are some of the tiniest in the universe." It's a good article, and I learned a lot, but every so often it reads like something an 8th grader would write the night before their paper is due.
Yeah i don't get the unnecessary vagueness. They are the smallest atoms. It's like they are afraid of accidentally educating the reader.
Re: The Race to Seal Helium HDDs (2021)
#46Are HDD's a significant consumer of the world's helium, in the scheme of things? I had thought helium was used only in a few bleeding edge drives, and they went to normal air as the tech matured.
Assuming a drive contains helium at standard temparature and pressure, and contains about a liter in volume. That would be about 1 gram worth of helium per drive.
Re: The Race to Seal Helium HDDs (2021)
#47The solution:
- They moved all the casing openings to the top of the drive and used a thin metal foil as a second cover.
- They adapted laser welding techniques from the satellite industry to seal the foil to the casing without damaging components with excess heat.
- They found an aluminum alloy used in aerospace that could withstand the laser welding without cracking.
- To get electricity and data in and out without breaking the seal, they used glass-metal feedthroughs similar to those used to seal Freon in refrigerators.
- To get the solder to adhere when attaching the feedthroughs, they used a nickel plating mask.
Re: The Race to Seal Helium HDDs (2021)
#48The solution: - They moved all the casing openings to the top of the drive and used a thin metal foil as a second cover. - They adapted laser welding techniques from the satellite industry to seal the foil to the casing without damaging components with excess heat. - They found an aluminum alloy used in aerospace that could withstand the laser welding without cracking. - To get electricity and data in and out without…
> used glass-metal feedthroughs
I wonder if this is still the case. I took a WD helium hard drive apart recently and I think I saw just a PCB glued in place for the electrical signals. Probably made from very special materials, but it looked just like usual.
Re: The Race to Seal Helium HDDs (2021)
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hydrogen would also be .. interesting ...
Hydrogen even diffuses through (and into) metal - seems not doable, not cheaply and without maintenance at least.
Helium atoms are actually smaller than hydrogen atoms, and much smaller than hydrogen mollecules.
Re: The Race to Seal Helium HDDs (2021)
#50"Helium is notoriously difficult to contain. Its atoms are some of the tiniest in the universe." It's a good article, and I learned a lot, but every so often it reads like something an 8th grader would write the night before their paper is due.
And here I was, thinking helium was the tiniest atom unless you start counting cations which has it beaten by Li+ and He+