Helium to be used in computer hard drives

[Tigerman]

Question is.. Have they rebuilt those flooded mechanical drive factories yet and if not - will they?
If not, the supply of mechanical disk drives might well be a factor in how fast theill be overtaken as the primary storage by ssd, especially in the consumer market.

 

[Diver0001]

Didn't see a better place to post this, and I expect at least a few here might be a little interested, even if just in passing:
Helium-filled hard disks will lead to higher capacities | Ars Technica

It's a competitive industry; 20% savings in operating energy costs and higher storage densities may make this mainstream technology. I have no real idea if this would represent a significant increase in helium demand in absolute terms, or how it will affect pricing for helium in the long term. A steady and sizable industrial demand might bring more production online. Or it might just increase prices. Or it might have absolutely no effect on the cost of helium for divers. The Ars article comments touch on some of those issues.

Interesting idea. I wonder why they decided to try helium instead of hydrogen, which is much cheaper and has even smaller molecules.

R..

 

[reefduffer]

.... I wonder why they decided to try helium instead of hydrogen, which is much cheaper and has even smaller molecules.

Maybe this? :worried:
I don't know for sure, but around electronics and heat, and even the occasional head crash, I think fire is at least plausible.
At a minimum, the concern would have to be a marketing and sales hurdle that would have to be dealt with.
Even short of actual combustion, hydrogen is reactive and might impact product life; helium is inert.

 

[Tigerman]

You know when mythbusters tested CDs spinning too fast and disintegrating?
Id absolutely LOVE to see them do one on hydrogen hdds

 

[Diver0001]

Maybe this? :worried:
I don't know for sure, but around electronics and heat, and even the occasional head crash, I think fire is at least plausible.
At a minimum, the concern would have to be a marketing and sales hurdle that would have to be dealt with.
Even short of actual combustion, hydrogen is reactive and might impact product life; helium is inert.

Yeah, I thought about those reasons, of course. but for combustion you need oxygen and the chamber would be sealed. I don't know if hydrogen would react with the cobalt/platinum alloy they use to coat the disk plates with but it would seem odd to me. I know that some things will react with cobalt as a catalyst but I'm not nearly good enough in chemistry to even venture a guess if it would cause problems. What I do know is that cobalt is used in artificial joints precisely because it doesn't react with much.

Anyway it's still a cool idea. It just seemed odd to me that they wouldn't consider it since hydrogen is everywhere and helium is kind of rare. You're probably right though, that helium being inert is probably easier to work with.... fewer variables means fewer things to go wrong.

R..

 

[skearse]

The other thing to consider with hydrogen is the design of the manufacturing & handling facilities. While the gas itself may be cheaper, installing a flammable/explosive gas handling facility is much more costly than an inert like helium or nitrogen. It's been a NUMBER of years since I've worked in any sort of electronics manufacturing but if memory serves me correctly very few were equipped to handle flammables-classified electrical areas, PSM, etc. (US standards-but the general concept should apply to global manufacturing as well).

 

[j2s]

SSD might still be very expensive, but after the floods in asia the prices on other disks increased while the SSD prices are dropping. Its just a matter of time before we move on to SSD anyways.
SSD just have too many benefits over mechanical drives not to continue taking market.
One thing is that the capacity of the disks need to increase another is the fact that mechanical disks is and always has been a major bottleneck in computers..

Ditto......W/the advent of OS7 breaking down the 'memory' barrier' [and the interdependence between memory/& mechanical hd's ] mechanical hd's can not cope w/greater speeds due to higher/faster memory....Ever wonder why Solid State drives (SSD's) came out about the same time as OS7 :O !!!!!?????........Hmmmmm.......SSD's are like any other new technology, expensive and basic at first, but price will drop/capacity will increase and sophistication will follow.......SSD's are just the next/intermediate step before Nano drives....And for all you 'paranoids' out there, yea, they're coming to get you ;P !!!!!!...........