"Seagate Ships World’s First 8TB Hard Drives"
 

"Seagate Ships World’s First 8TB Hard Drives"
http://www.seagate.com/about/newsroo...ves-pr-master/

Yes, seven platters. Reminds me of the old 12 inch
winchester with the removable 10? platters.

Wait, here is WD with a 10 TB drive!

http://www.computerworld.com/article...sh-drives.html

Lynn

"Seagate Ships World’s First 8TB Hard Drives"
 

Lynn McGuire wrote:

"Seagate Ships World¢s First 8TB Hard Drives"
http://www.seagate.com/about/newsroo...ves-pr-master/

Yes, seven platters. Reminds me of the old 12 inch
winchester with the removable 10? platters.

Wait, here is WD with a 10 TB drive!

http://www.computerworld.com/article...sh-drives.html

Lynn

Ooh, helium-filled HDDs. Until you start looking at what's happening to
the helium supply market.

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/scien...ly-f6C10963426
http://phys.org/news/2013-04-probing-helium.html
http://www.popularmechanics.com/scie...rtage-10031229

So they're developing technically superior devices that rely on
deteriorating resources. Although mass production is used to lower
prices until some threshold where there is mass appeal for the product
(i.e., the product hits a price point that consumers are willing to
pay), the problem is that helium-filled drives will increase in cost as
there is more fighting over the the diminishing reserve. About when the
HDD makers would expect cost to hit the sweet spot for consumer pricing
is when helium will take off and force increases in the costs of these
HDDs. Did anyone at Seagate or WDC consider where they're going to get
the helium to put inside their HDD cases?

"Seagate Ships World¢s First 8TB Hard Drives"
 

On 9/12/2014 4:28 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
Lynn McGuire wrote:

"Seagate Ships World¢s First 8TB Hard Drives"
http://www.seagate.com/about/newsroo...ves-pr-master/

Yes, seven platters. Reminds me of the old 12 inch
winchester with the removable 10? platters.

Wait, here is WD with a 10 TB drive!

http://www.computerworld.com/article...sh-drives.html

Lynn

Ooh, helium-filled HDDs. Until you start looking at what's happening to
the helium supply market.

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/scien...ly-f6C10963426
http://phys.org/news/2013-04-probing-helium.html
http://www.popularmechanics.com/scie...rtage-10031229

So they're developing technically superior devices that rely on
deteriorating resources. Although mass production is used to lower
prices until some threshold where there is mass appeal for the product
(i.e., the product hits a price point that consumers are willing to
pay), the problem is that helium-filled drives will increase in cost as
there is more fighting over the the diminishing reserve. About when the
HDD makers would expect cost to hit the sweet spot for consumer pricing
is when helium will take off and force increases in the costs of these
HDDs. Did anyone at Seagate or WDC consider where they're going to get
the helium to put inside their HDD cases?

Maybe they already bought enough helium to last their
manufacturing for the next five years? I sure would.

Lynn

"Seagate Ships World¢s First 8TB Hard Drives"
 

Lynn McGuire wrote:

On 9/12/2014 4:28 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
Lynn McGuire wrote:

"Seagate Ships World¢s First 8TB Hard Drives"
http://www.seagate.com/about/newsroo...ves-pr-master/

Yes, seven platters. Reminds me of the old 12 inch
winchester with the removable 10? platters.

Wait, here is WD with a 10 TB drive!

http://www.computerworld.com/article...sh-drives.html

Lynn

Ooh, helium-filled HDDs. Until you start looking at what's happening to
the helium supply market.

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/scien...ly-f6C10963426
http://phys.org/news/2013-04-probing-helium.html
http://www.popularmechanics.com/scie...rtage-10031229

So they're developing technically superior devices that rely on
deteriorating resources. Although mass production is used to lower
prices until some threshold where there is mass appeal for the product
(i.e., the product hits a price point that consumers are willing to
pay), the problem is that helium-filled drives will increase in cost as
there is more fighting over the the diminishing reserve. About when the
HDD makers would expect cost to hit the sweet spot for consumer pricing
is when helium will take off and force increases in the costs of these
HDDs. Did anyone at Seagate or WDC consider where they're going to get
the helium to put inside their HDD cases?

Maybe they already bought enough helium to last their
manufacturing for the next five years? I sure would.

Lynn

They could but they would also have to build the storage facilities to
actually have the helium rather than pay someone on the promise that the
supplier will have helium later. I suspect it would be a lot longer
than a 5-year supply they would need to accumulate in their own tanks.
They've been using air for how long now? 30 years, or more?

With air, the HDDs were not sealed. With helium, yep, they'll have to
be completely sealed. So what happens if there is a leak? Will they
add a helium sensor to detect a reduction in helium molecules? Will
they pressurized the interior to notice a reduction in pressure to
indicate helium loss? Are users expect to save a history of HDD
temperatures to notice when there is a sustained elevation in internal
temperatures indicating the loss of helium. Anything that's confined
will have a percentage of failures of that confinement, especially for
consumer-grade hardware.

If helium prices escalate as expected, the normal drop in HDD price as
the product moves from design to manufacture will get obliterated by the
rise in helium cost. With tight competition, the difference of a few
cents can make or break the sales of a product. Until there is a
resolution as to who is going to continue manufacture of helium and
perhaps how to recycle it, relying on helium is technically a win but
financially could be a loss. They talk helium but not how they're going
to ensure they have some in the future.

"Seagate Ships World’s First 8TB Hard Drives"
 

On Fri, 12 Sep 2014 16:28:44 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

So they're developing technically superior devices that rely on
deteriorating resources. Although mass production is used to lower
prices until some threshold where there is mass appeal for the product
(i.e., the product hits a price point that consumers are willing to
pay), the problem is that helium-filled drives will increase in cost as
there is more fighting over the the diminishing reserve. About when the
HDD makers would expect cost to hit the sweet spot for consumer pricing
is when helium will take off and force increases in the costs of these
HDDs. Did anyone at Seagate or WDC consider where they're going to get
the helium to put inside their HDD cases?

No question helium supplies are tightening, and price rises are to be
expected. But with the stuff now selling, crude, around $70/Mcf (or 7
cents a cubic foot), Helium cost isn't a significant part of the
product price. Even if Helium pricing increases by a factor of 10,
say, it won't matter much to WD.

Keeping the stuff in the drive, on the other hand, does sound like a
challenge. Helium is notoriously able to escape containment. It will
be interesting to see how things shake out.

"Seagate Ships World’s First 8TB Hard Drives"
 

On 09/13/2014 07:44 AM, BobT wrote:
On Fri, 12 Sep 2014 16:28:44 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

So they're developing technically superior devices that rely on
deteriorating resources. Although mass production is used to lower
prices until some threshold where there is mass appeal for the product
(i.e., the product hits a price point that consumers are willing to
pay), the problem is that helium-filled drives will increase in cost as
there is more fighting over the the diminishing reserve. About when the
HDD makers would expect cost to hit the sweet spot for consumer pricing
is when helium will take off and force increases in the costs of these
HDDs. Did anyone at Seagate or WDC consider where they're going to get
the helium to put inside their HDD cases?

No question helium supplies are tightening, and price rises are to be
expected. But with the stuff now selling, crude, around $70/Mcf (or 7
cents a cubic foot), Helium cost isn't a significant part of the
product price. Even if Helium pricing increases by a factor of 10,
say, it won't matter much to WD.

Keeping the stuff in the drive, on the other hand, does sound like a
challenge. Helium is notoriously able to escape containment. It will
be interesting to see how things shake out.

"shake out" might turn out to be apt.

"Seagate Ships World’s First 8TB Hard Drives"
 

On 9/13/2014 7:44 AM, BobT wrote:
On Fri, 12 Sep 2014 16:28:44 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

So they're developing technically superior devices that rely on
deteriorating resources. Although mass production is used to lower
prices until some threshold where there is mass appeal for the product
(i.e., the product hits a price point that consumers are willing to
pay), the problem is that helium-filled drives will increase in cost as
there is more fighting over the the diminishing reserve. About when the
HDD makers would expect cost to hit the sweet spot for consumer pricing
is when helium will take off and force increases in the costs of these
HDDs. Did anyone at Seagate or WDC consider where they're going to get
the helium to put inside their HDD cases?

No question helium supplies are tightening, and price rises are to be
expected. But with the stuff now selling, crude, around $70/Mcf (or 7
cents a cubic foot), Helium cost isn't a significant part of the
product price. Even if Helium pricing increases by a factor of 10,
say, it won't matter much to WD.

Keeping the stuff in the drive, on the other hand, does sound like a
challenge. Helium is notoriously able to escape containment. It will
be interesting to see how things shake out.


What does the helium do in a hard drive, anyway?

John

"Seagate Ships World's First 8TB Hard Drives"
 

John Turco wrote:

What does the helium do in a hard drive, anyway?

A Bing search on "helium drives" brought up the following link on the
first page:

http://www.infostor.com/backup-and_recovery/disk-based-backup/the-rise-of-helium-drives-in-data-storage.html

"Seagate Ships World’s First 8TB HardDrives"
 

Lynn McGuire writes:

"Seagate Ships World’s First 8TB Hard Drives"
http://www.seagate.com/about/newsroo...ves-pr-master/

Yes, seven platters. Reminds me of the old 12 inch
winchester with the removable 10? platters.

How did they manage a removable platter in a Winchester drive? It would
seem like removing the whole sealed unit would leave nothing but a
circuit board behind...

Wait, here is WD with a 10 TB drive!

http://www.computerworld.com/article...sh-drives.html

Lynn

"Seagate Ships World¢s First 8TB Hard Drives"
 

Joe Pfeiffer wrote:

Yes, seven platters. Reminds me of the old 12 inch winchester with
the removable 10? platters.

How did they manage a removable platter in a Winchester drive? It would
seem like removing the whole sealed unit would leave nothing but a
circuit board behind...

You're showing your lack of age.

The whole platter assembly was removable. It came out with a plastic
bell that you could store separately hence you could replace "drives"
(well, the platter packs since the "drive" was the washing machine that
stayed in one place).

HDD platter packs:
https://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/histor...hsDiskPack.jpg
http://i.stack.imgur.com/1hFxX.png

That one you inserted the pack into a "drive" (about the size of a small
washing machine), twisted on the handle, removed the plastic shell, and
closed the drive. As to its size, see the comparison he

http://tr2.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/2006...8646b/3373.jpg

Rack-mounted sliding HDD:
http://www.edwardbosworth.com/CPSC21...s/image006.gif

That one only had 1 or 2 platters, the rack-mounted drive slid on rails,
and you plopped the platter set into the drive (the top was the seal),
and slid the drive back into the rack.

Because of the size, thickness, and weight of the platters, especially
for multi-platter packs, they were only supposed to be spun up when
stationary. A U.S. sub once forgot to spin them down before leaving
port, the drive assemblies broke lose from the floor bolts, and the
thing went bashing around the room.

The air contamination problem was eliminated by having both the platters
and head assembly sealed inside a plastic shell that you twisted into
the drive which made electrical contacts to control the heads. Where
you screwed the pack into was the motor to spin the platters. See
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Module.agr.jpg.
Think about trying to tote one of these with your laptop.

History of magnetic drives
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History...ic_disk_drives

At the opposite spectrum were the microdrives. I believe they were
originally planned for pre-installation on motherboards to provide some
starting storage capacity. 1-inch platters about the size of a quarter;
http://www.tommytrc.com/sparkatopia/...8d31d484a8.jpg.
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microdrive.

In the old movies showing computers, HDAs were boring to film because
nothing could be seen, so they should you a bank of old tape drives and
some maintenance panel rarely touched with blinking lights and switches.
The computer room was so noise due to drive motors, fans in the
equipment, and high-volume air flow A/C that I used to wear my hearing
protectors that I used at the gun range. It saved from hearing loss.