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Old May 4th 18, 08:31 PM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Lynn McGuire[_3_]
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Default "The Helium Factor and Hard Drive Failure Rates"

On 5/3/2018 8:50 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
Lynn McGuire wrote:

"The Helium Factor and Hard Drive Failure Rates"
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/heliu...failure-rates/

"In November 2013, the first commercially available helium-filled hard
drive was introduced by HGST, a Western Digital subsidiary. The 6 TB
drive was not only unique in being helium-filled, it was for the moment,
the highest capacity hard drive available. Fast forward a little over 4
years later and 12 TB helium-filled drives are readily available, 14 TB
drives can be found, and 16 TB helium-filled drives are arriving soon."

Interesting. I do wonder about 5 and 10 years out.


Seems they should be comparing apples to apples by comparing the HGST
helium-filled drives to air-filled WDC drives where both are
manufactured at the same plant since WDC has multiple [co]manufacturing
plants). Different brands would just expose failure rates by brand
which could swamp any difference in survival rates between helium and
air filled drives. Are the Seagates listed in the table made at the
same plant (not just by the brand)?

Since heat is the bane of most electronics, and with helium-filled
drives running at cooler temperatures, the expectation is that those
will have longer survival rates. This is implied in the article by the
mention of Drive Days (which is much shorter for helium-filled drives
than for air-filled drives).

While the data is interesting for enterprise deployments where there are
thousands and thousands of drives, it means little to the end user.
Either the failure rate is going to be zero or 100%. Only the number of
days that helium survives longer than air-filled might have some value,
but I suspect the difference will be a few days or couple weeks AFTER
YEARS of continual use - which will be of little value to the consumer
due to the much higher cost of helium-filled drives.

HGST 10TB air-filled drive: $320 sale ($400 non-sale)
(https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...82E16822146148)

HGST 10TB helium-filled drive: $428
(https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...9SIA25V58C1045)

Without any evidence showing helium drives actually survive longer than
air-filled drives -- and under typical consumer use (which means daily
power cycling) -- there isn't much impetus to buy helium when sales on
air-filled gives a large price break.

Helium is a LIMITED resource. Depletion is estimated in about 25 years.

https://phys.org/news/2010-08-world-...ze-winner.html
(dated back in August 2010)
"There is no chemical means of manufacturing helium. What we have was
created in the extremely slow radioactive alpha decay occuring in
rocks."

So if the mechanical drive industry moves to helium, depletion is
exascerbated. What are they going to use after the helium is gone? Go
back to air? Obviously, or find another non-renewing gas that they can
deplete.


Vacuum seems to be the obvious next step. But there are heat removal
problems in vacuum.

And I am concerned about how long the helium want to stay in the drive.
Will these drives all die after five years ?

Lynn