>I recently opened a case of 32 2 TB drives shelved since 2010 or so. These are Hitachi Ultrastar drives, the more reliable drives by a large margin. However, 3

>I recently opened a case of 32 2 TB drives shelved since 2010 or so. These are Hitachi Ultrastar drives, the more reliable drives by a large margin. However, 3 of these were dead. HDDs can get contaminated by siloxanes or hydrocarbon vapours, the former can come from adhesive tape and turn into abrasive SiO2 particles on the head. Only anecdata, but I used silicone 'covers' to protect a couple of backup HDDs in storage, and one failed within a year :( https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/trol/6/1/6_1_96/_pdf/-char/en https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/trol/6/1/6_1_96/_pdf/-c... Wonder if the helium filled drives would fare better in storage?