Western Digital reveals 10TB hard drive filled with Helium
Hot on the heels of Seagate's 6 TB hard drive and upcoming air-filled 8 TB model, Western Digital's HGSD subsidiary has revealed their 10 TB Helium gas filled hard drive that will soon go into advanced testing. The Western Digital company feels that the cost per gigabyte will be highly competitive.
HelioSeal Technology
HelioSeal tech first appeared from Western Digital back in November 2013 with their initial 6 TB drive. Helium was hermetically sealed within the drive and this ensured that no other air or containments could get in either. The lower air resistance inside the drive meant that they could fit more platters inside the drive mechanism as well.
This translated into 23 percent less power usage so you can see where they're going with this. For data centers still using hundreds of hard drives instead of faster but more expensive SSDs, the daily power savings could be impressive.
Shingled Recording
The 10 TB drive uses shingled magnetic recording which increases areal density. The read-write times are not as impressive as with the Western Digital 8 TB helium-filled drive which is a little further along in the testing process with cloud providers and major OEMs.
6TB Air-Filled Alternative
If helium is not your thing then Western Digital also have an air-filled 6 TB hard drive, Ultrastar 7K6000, with its five platters each working with 1.2TB.
It's clear that hard drive capacities are growing quickly as the technology moves in a different direction to allow storage growth. Many buyers are also moving across to SSDs that keep reducing in price and adding further capacity, but for anyone who has more than 1 GB to store, economically traditional hard drives still continue to make the most sense.
