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I keep getting spammed with emails about these latest greatest hard drives filled with helium to boost their speed. Any credible science behind this?
If I encase my drivetrain in a helium filled casing will I ride my bike quicker?
I reckon the air around the rest of your body might have a greater effect than a helium drivetrain 🙂
Would the noise of the platters spinning not be really high-pitched?
I fitted one, can't get my laptop down from the ceiling now.
...I'll get my coat!
I fitted one, Siri sounds right peculiar now.
Got my coat & going!
It is a real thing but far too expensive for most to consider unless you are in the business of having terabits of storage capacity about and the density of the storage in the arrays is a consideration.
Would the noise of the platters spinning not be really high-pitched?
😆
I thought the world was going solid state.
Would the noise of the platters spinning not be really high-pitched?
bah, only came here to say how Apple had removed all my tunes and replaced them with Pinky & Perky covers
Same principle that F1 teams used when they used helium to spin up there air guns slightly faster. Until they all mutually agreed to ban it due to helium being a finite resource.
I thought the world was going solid state.
They are struggling to make the capacity still for the large volume drives that they are using with helium filled.
Most organisations will have fast SSD disks for stuff that needs to be quick and then large quantities of slower conventional drives for the bulk volume of data.
helium being a finite resource
This.
Charity baloon releases really do my head in, not only are you polluting when the damn thing comes down but you are wasting a finite resource! If I had my way frivolous use of helium would be banned.
. This.
Charity baloon releases really do my head in, not only are you polluting when the damn thing comes down but you are wasting a finite resource! If I had my way frivolous use of helium would be banned.
I hate to sound a kill-joy but very much this.
There are far too many people on this planet to act the way we do with some things and this is one example. Fireworks are another thing I think should be restricted and those stupid lanterns banned.
Why stop at Helium, Hydrogen's lighter, they use it in power station generators.
The explosion risk is overstated. 😉
The TL;DR on this is that, yes, helium filled HDDs are "real" - it's just the latest in the long line of tricks used to keep spinning rust a mainstream storage medium.
Buy an SSD as a boot device, though, you'll not regret it.
The explosion risk is overstated.
Keep it above the LEL and you'll be fiiiiine.
Sorry, frivolous use of helium should be banned because its finite?
How's it any different from using oil as fuel to go on holiday? Surely that's a frivolous use of a finite resource? It's genuine question.
Does helium just float out of the earth's atmosphere then and into space?
helium being a finite resource
Someone better tell Joe Pasquale that...
^pretty much, yes (the floating off thing).
Oil is easily replaced or substituted, helium not so much or, in fact, at all. Once it's gone it's really gone, you can only create it from fusion or radioactive decay.
Just because it's abundant in the universe does not mean it's abundant on Earth, dark matter is pretty abundant as well but you don't see much of it kicking about our neck of the woods.
Why not a vacuum instead of helium?
If our server rooms are anything to go by the most common gas in them in Methane.
Helium wastage is a big thing. I have lost about eight thousand litres (liquid)this year alone. Makes me angry.
dark matter is pretty abundant as well but you don't see much of it
The think about dark matter, right, is that it's dark. So how are you supposed to see it? 🙂
Why not a vacuum instead of helium?
Because the heads actually 'fly' or float above the disk surface ... you need a gas in there so this can happen. In a vacuum the heads would touch the disk and wear out pretty quickly!
Kind of reminds me of the spate of tyre outlets offering to fill your car's tyres with nitrogen, then in the small print stating that the actual nitrogen content is 80%.
Mechanical hard drives...one day, we'll regard them with the same fondness as we do music cassette decks. There has to be a better/cheaper/more reliable way of storing data just around the corner.
Because the heads actually 'fly' or float above the disk surface ... you need a gas in there so this can happen
Interesting!
Helium is finite and most of it is mined!
😀Kind of reminds me of the spate of tyre outlets offering to fill your car's tyres with nitrogen, then in the small print stating that the actual nitrogen content is 80%.
Because the heads actually 'fly' or float above the disk surface ... you need a gas in there so this can happen
Yup. It's called an "air bearing." Once you've got your head round that, have a think about what would happen if you put a hard disk in a spacecraft.
The think about dark matter, right, is that it's dark.
Thank you, Holly.
Kind of reminds me of the spate of tyre outlets offering to fill your car's tyres with nitrogen, then in the small print stating that the actual nitrogen content is 80%.
Oh, that's beautiful. Sneaky sods.
have a think about what would happen if you put a hard disk in a spacecraft.
been using solid state for decades
in ye olde times, the tape drives were sealed and pressurised (presumably with Nitrogen).
Now where can we get Petabyte SSDs from?
<nods> it was a leading question (makes you think).
A magnetic HDD has an operating range which caps out at about 10,000 feet, and similarly has a depth restriction (which I can't remember offhand).
Well this has turned out to be far more interesting than I thought it would be.
As a genuine question then, what are the important uses for Helium?
I guess we can all accept that using up a finite resource isn't great, but would it be the detriment to mankind or the planet?
It's very useful to make things mighty cold.
It is a finite resource, but they "found some more", so there's plenty for quite a while.
When it runs out, there will be no more MRI scans.
When it runs out, there will be no more MRI scans.
Did scientific R&D abruptly stop after the invention of the MRI or something?
We will see 16 and 32TB SSDs probably next year.
Traditional Hard drives will probably be dead in less than 5 years
There still would be MRI scans. They would be(even)slower, a lot more expensive and certainly not in every hospital or practice any more.
The main issue is that the price of the kept artificially low by the US. Assume they are the largest producers. 20 quid a liter seems very low for something there is not a great deal of.
See this plantpot waste about 2000 litres of liquid Helium
Did scientific R&D abruptly stop after the invention of the MRI or something?
No, but if you know of a better way to cool to a few degrees off absolute zero feel free to put yourself forward for a Nobel prize 😉
I'm guessing liquid Nitrogen isn't cold enough? - Genuine question.
Fluid Boiling temperature Celsius, Boiling temperature Fahrenheit
Oxygen -183° -297°
Nitrogen -196° -320°
Neon -246° -411°
Hydrogen -253° -423°
Helium -270° -452°
Cheers, answers that one then.
No, but if you know of a better way to cool to a few degrees off absolute zero feel free to put yourself forward for a Nobel prize
Who knows. Maybe by the time we run out of helium that won't even be necessary.
Point is, it's an oversimplification. It's like saying "without Alexander G Bell we wouldn't have telephones." That might be true, but it ignores the notion that if he hadn't then someone else would probably have invented it, or something else similar, perhaps even better.
Actually it isn't as he only beat one of his competitors to the patent office by a matter of hours, but I suppose that fits in with the rest of what you put. 😉Point is, it's an oversimplification. It's like saying "without Alexander G Bell we wouldn't have telephones." That might be true...
What about Airlander 10... Think that uses over a million cubic ft of the stuff...
And they're planning on building 10!
. What about Airlander 10... Think that uses over a million cubic ft of the stuff...
At what temperature and pressure though? 😉
Aye, bearing in mind a gas is roughly 1000x the volume of a liquid that's only about 28.32m^2 each.
Maybe it wont be necessary but betting on a trchnological breakthrough in time for depletion is rather foolhardy don't you think? By that logic we should just batter into our fossil fuel reserves and hope technology keeps up. Not really the same thing as your patent theory as the telephone already exists,ntheoretical trchnologies are exactly that!
By that logic we should just batter into our fossil fuel reserves and hope technology keeps up.
Isn't that exactly what we're doing already?