Helium filled hard drives
- Thread starter Bozo
- Start date
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
The news you linked dated back to September 13th, 2012. I read about the 7-platter upcoming drive from WD's HGST division, but it wasn't this news.
ddrueding
Fixture
Were I in the spinning disk business (and I'm glad I'm not), I wouldn't be chasing performance at all. Capacity is the only thing they have going for them, and maximizing that seems the obvious play.
Bozo
Storage? I am Storage!
mubs
Storage? I am Storage!
Will the drives have giggling fits? Is this a gag? Spoof?
Chewy509
Wotty wot wot.
I thought it was a way to reduce the weight of the drive, making laptops lighter... (lighter than air), get it? never mind...
Here is the Ultrastar-HE6. Being an Ultrastar I guess it will be expensive.
ddrueding
Fixture
And the question I had is answered right in the brief. Because these drives are sealed, they can be used in oil baths.
Bozo
Storage? I am Storage!
I wonder why they didn't choose to run the platters in a vacuum?
Stereodude
Not really a
Because the heads ride on a cushion of gas.
Howell
Storage? I am Storage!
You can't float the head in a vacuum. It is the tension between the head arm and the force of floating the head that allows for precise head height positioning. Coincidentally the lighter gas means the head arm force may be less which means less resident to shocks.
Why would a hard drive need to operate in a oil bath? Is that a common IT problem? :cyclop:
Oil baths are an interesting cooling system. Having no air-hole means you can submerge the HD's rather than needing to separate the HD's from the rest of the machine which is entirely submerged in non-conductive mineral oil.
Why use water on individual components when you can cool everything with oil in a fish tank? The only real problem is that it can be a bit messy when removing components.
http://www.pugetsystems.com/submerged.php
Why use water on individual components when you can cool everything with oil in a fish tank? The only real problem is that it can be a bit messy when removing components.
http://www.pugetsystems.com/submerged.php
I can image a 20-YO in his mother's basement with something like that, but at work in the data center? How does one service the system and upgrade components?
You pull it out of the oil (messy); replace the HW; and put it back. There is no reason an entire rack can't be submerged as long as you have a big enough tank and something that can lift it in and out. The primary problem were HD's and that was because of the air-hole which is now eliminated with these helium HD's.
The real benefit for a large commercial operation is the ease and cost of cooling compared to air conditioning.
The real benefit for a large commercial operation is the ease and cost of cooling compared to air conditioning.
ddrueding
Fixture
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
sedrosken
Florida Man
Well, it is 6 TB...
Still, at $800 for one unit isn't it more economical to buy 6 1 TB models and RAID them together? Provided you've got the room in the case, of course?
What's so special about it being filled with helium, exactly? Are they noticeably faster or more reliable than their normal counterparts? Enough to warrant it costing $200 more than 6 1 TB drives?
Does the helium in it allow for more areal density? Also, why specify SATA? Do they make PATA or SCSI ones, still? Or is there a new interface for me to know about, other than USB 3?
Still, at $800 for one unit isn't it more economical to buy 6 1 TB models and RAID them together? Provided you've got the room in the case, of course?
What's so special about it being filled with helium, exactly? Are they noticeably faster or more reliable than their normal counterparts? Enough to warrant it costing $200 more than 6 1 TB drives?
Does the helium in it allow for more areal density? Also, why specify SATA? Do they make PATA or SCSI ones, still? Or is there a new interface for me to know about, other than USB 3?
sedrosken
Florida Man
Never mind, found the answer to my question. Thought for some reason that CougTek's post above me was the only one... I need to either go to bed or start paying attention to my scrollbar.
Multiple drives in Raid-0 is not a replacement for a single larger HD. HD's fail, and when they do they take out the entire raid-0 set. When you are dependent on multiple HD you multiply the failure risk many times. The data is normally far more important than saving a few bucks at the start.
Last edited:
Tannin
Storage? I am Storage!
Yes. Well, yes provided you don't use any idiot RAID system. (That's 98% of the RAID systems installed in non-enterprise applications. The other 2% have been done for an actual sensible reason, and installed by someone who honestly has a few clues. You can usually tell who these people are - for starters, they don't much like ASUS or Western Digital products, and most of them can read and (if pushed to it) even write. Most RAID systems you see outside large commercial installations and special-purpose business operations are spelled with a "W". Oh, and an "ANK" after the "W". If you want more space, just add drives of the most economical size. Well, unless you are one of the 2% do it that way.)
But the $800 is just early-adopter tax. Wait a year or two and they will be $200.
SAS is used for high-end enterprise drives. It is to SATA as SCSI was to PATA - more capable, more flexible, more scalable, generally not all that much faster, and very expensive.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Tannin said:
Stop judging my data collection habits!
ddrueding
Fixture
My local machine has a RAID-0 array of 4, 4TB disks. But I do consider that to be a temporary drive; no mission-critical, non-backed-up stuff allowed.
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
Just like Monday Night Football, we should start our "Come on, man!" show.
ddrueding
Fixture
It is purely temporary, and speed is important. Good for storing the thousands of RAW images after a big shoot (with a copy still on the CF cards) before sorting and filing. Also good for a recovery destination on hard drive repairs.
The recent version of AutoCAD was a 40GB+ download that expanded to 60GB+ before installation (another 60GB+ depending on options). My main SSD only has ~100GB of free space on it, but I don't want these tasks going over the network.
The recent version of AutoCAD was a 40GB+ download that expanded to 60GB+ before installation (another 60GB+ depending on options). My main SSD only has ~100GB of free space on it, but I don't want these tasks going over the network.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
My big file server has 29 internal 4TB drives (29? Yeah. There's a bunch of empty space inside the chassis in front of the power supply and I had the extra SATA ports that were just going to waste...) and another 12 3TB drives in an SAS enclosure and potentially another 8 2TB drives in an eSATA enclosure and a Drobo 5D. But there's also an LTO tape changer and my data is duplicated across multiple disks or arrays so whatever the hell I'm doing with RAID (in my case, a lot of arrays that are around 15.somethingTB) is not really in the same category as a couple drives in a RAID0.
sechs
Storage? I am Storage!
So, what's up with the 1TB per platter limit, and why are manufacturers doing such a crappy job producing them?
This behemoth requires seven platters to his 6TB. I recently replaced a stack of single platter 1TB drives, old enough to be out of warranty, with two platter 2TB drives. That's zero progress -- and I had to poke around to make sure that I didn't get drives built with three platters.
This behemoth requires seven platters to his 6TB. I recently replaced a stack of single platter 1TB drives, old enough to be out of warranty, with two platter 2TB drives. That's zero progress -- and I had to poke around to make sure that I didn't get drives built with three platters.
timwhit
Hairy Aussie
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
I suspect they have yield problems when bit densities get too high. And Hitachi was the only company that really messed with 4 platter+ drives in the modern era. They're just leveraging something they know how to do.
sechs
Storage? I am Storage!
Is there a 4TB drive with less than four platters?
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Hitachi's been offering five platter drives for ages (e.g. the 75GXP). I can't remember the last time I saw non-Hitachi drive with five.
jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
Until HAMR is commercially feasible areal densities probably aren't going to increase all that much. I suspect by the time it is SSDs will be approaching magnetic disks in terms of price per TB. HAMR can potentially increase densities by a factor of 100, but by stacking flash RAM chips (V-NAND) in a single package solid-state drives can blow that away. More on V-NAND. The forecast calls for 1 Tb chips by 2017.
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
The 6TB HGST helium drive is now available at only ~570$CDN. That's quite a drop from not so long ago.
I will be in the market for additional drives in not too long since I have less than 300GB of free space left. This drive looks like a strong candidate.
I will be in the market for additional drives in not too long since I have less than 300GB of free space left. This drive looks like a strong candidate.
ddrueding
Fixture
A RAID0 of those would be awesome!
(I kid, I kid)
(I kid, I kid)