4 ms·
So it becomes read only when helium leaks out?
by 1996 6y ago
So it becomes read only when helium leaks out?
- rbanffy 6y agoI have no idea. May become unreadable if the head can't read because the disk is too far (or if it's too close and it crashes on the disk)
- magicalhippo 6y agoI 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/enterprise-hdd-fam/enterprise-capacity-3-5-hdd-10tb/_shared/docs/helium-drive-launch-tp686-1-1602us.pdf https://www.seagate.com/files/www-content/product-content/en...
- Dylan16807 6y agoI'll interpret that as: The drive could be designed with a failsafe lower-RPM mode but it's not worth the engineering budget to allow more than one speed. Especially looking at WD's "5400 RPM Class" thing as evidence that it takes effort to change the speed of a drive.