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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

#61

Post by moonbug »

GeorgeTirebiter wrote: post #59
moonbug wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

drives like this will typically be rated for a 5yr operational life.

If there is leakage, I wonder how long it would be before the data could not be recoverable? Could one transplant the platters and 're-charge' the Helium? Or just somehow recharge the old disk? Because unless / until we get some cheap lots-of-bit storage, all the 'stuff' we're generating will not be, in effect, archivable. Is this right?

Dunno, but disks are consumable items - don't kid yourself otherwise.

Re: Toshiba Unveils First FC-MAMR HDD: 18 TB, Helium Filled

#62

Post by duskwuff »

burke wrote: post #2

I 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.

> I wonder if that (is true, and if so whether it) imposes some kind of maximum life on these drives.

It does. Most helium-filled drives expose a SMART attribute (ID 22) for how much helium is remaining.

Re: Toshiba Unveils First FC-MAMR HDD: 18 TB, Helium Filled

#63

Post by meepmorp »

tyingq wrote: post #21
Denvercoder9 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The given value for hydrogen is for hydrogen gas (i.e. H₂), while helium is just a single atom.

That's what you would expect, though. Helium gas is "He1", hydrogen gas is "H2".

I think that was their point: hydrogen gas is diatomic, so it makes intuitive sense for it to be larger than helium

Re: Toshiba Unveils First FC-MAMR HDD: 18 TB, Helium Filled

#64

Post by rbanffy »

sandworm101 wrote: post #30
rbanffy wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone have a number on how much Helium is produced in the Earth's crust by radioactive decay?

Not enough. It is generally known that we are using helium faster than the planet can naturally produce it. We currently get helium from natural gas deposits. In the future we might end up puling it from the air, but that would be very expensive. For many use cases it might be easier to switch to hydrogen. For those interested in SETI, excessive atmospheric helium might be a detectable techno-signature, a sign that s…

I am sure we are using it faster than we are extracting it, and it'll be interesting to see what happens when selling hydrocarbons no longer offsets the cost of extracting it, but I was thinking about how much is actually produced.

Re: Toshiba Unveils First FC-MAMR HDD: 18 TB, Helium Filled

#65

Post by [deleted] »

Covzire wrote: post #50
ksec wrote: post #45

For those who haven't been following HDD closely. Energy Assisted Magnetic Recording, EAMR is a term that sums up both MAMR, Microwave Assisted Magnetic Recording and HAMR, Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording. And this isn't the first 18TB HDD, there are 20TB HDD already. Nor the first MAMR drive. Western Digital Ultrastar DC HC550 [1] claims that title. MAMR will bring us some incremental gains, both WD and Seagate bel…

Is transistor density somehow holding back magnetic storage density too or something else?

[deleted]

Re: Toshiba Unveils First FC-MAMR HDD: 18 TB, Helium Filled

#67

Post by foobarian »

GeorgeTirebiter wrote: post #59
moonbug wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

drives like this will typically be rated for a 5yr operational life.

If there is leakage, I wonder how long it would be before the data could not be recoverable? Could one transplant the platters and 're-charge' the Helium? Or just somehow recharge the old disk? Because unless / until we get some cheap lots-of-bit storage, all the 'stuff' we're generating will not be, in effect, archivable. Is this right?

Yay back to syringes and weird jigs and refilling our computing accessories with weird chemicals.

Re: Toshiba Unveils First FC-MAMR HDD: 18 TB, Helium Filled

#68

Post by magicalhippo »

tecleandor wrote: post #37
mcraiha wrote: post #32

At data copy rate of 100 MB/s taking a backup from one of these drives takes 50 hours.

Where did you get that? The specs table says: Sequential Data Transfer Rate (host to/from drive) 281 MB/s

For comparisons sake, my 14TB Toshiba MG07ACA14TE drives get effectively ~260MB/s outer rim to ~180 MB/s inner rim.

Re: Toshiba Unveils First FC-MAMR HDD: 18 TB, Helium Filled

#69

Post by the8472 »

shadykiller wrote: post #66

What happened to memristor based storage revolution ?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4479989/

Speaking of storage revolutions, there also was the promised MRAM revolution. That never materialized, but at least they're shipping useful niche products.

Re: Toshiba Unveils First FC-MAMR HDD: 18 TB, Helium Filled

#70

Post by magicalhippo »

1996 wrote: post #26
rbanffy wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the internal pressure in the device is lower than one atm, the leakage is easier to contain because it's not helium wanting to go out, but air pushing to come in. Eventually it will happen and the internal drive atmosphere will be compromised to a point it doesn't work anymore. By then, it should be safe enough to open the drive in a clean Helium-filled room and reseal it. Or just read the data, store it someplace…

So it becomes read only when helium leaks out?

I though it would just lead to more heat, but reading this[1] from Seagate it seems indeed possible that the drive will not function if too much air gets in:

Furthermore, the use of a higher number of thinner disks is not possible because the windage induces turbulence and makes 7200-RPM tracking impossible at the desired TPIs. The only way to reduce windage in air-filled HDDs is to significantly lower the spindle speed (RPM). However, the largest part of the business-critical market is not willing to accept lower RPMs due to the performance and throughput loss. This means that helium HDD technology is the only viable path forward for delivering higher capacities because it will allow for an increased number of thinner disks.

That said, they also go into the efforts they do to seal the helium, so hopefully the helium stays put...

[1]: https://www.seagate.com/files/www-content/product-content/en...

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