Seagate's 6TB HDDs Coming in Early 2Q 2014
Seagate is working on a 6 TB hard drive.
Currently, Western Digital is the only company with a 6 TB drive on the market, dubbed as the Ultrastar He6. This drive is a world's first in that it uses helium, is hermetically sealed, and has the largest capacity on the market. The helium-based drive was released back in November, and now Seagate is vowing to offer its own 6 TB solution this April.
"We are continuing to expand our offering of high capacity drives with our six-disk, 6 TB drive shipping early next quarter," said Steve Luczo, chairman and chief executive of Seagate during a conference call with investors and financial analysts.
Unfortunately, Seagate did not provide additional details other than the drive will be marketed to the enterprise sector. Obviously, Seagate can't use the same technology that helped Western Digital cram seven platters in a standard 3.5 form factor, but it may be similar.
In the case of Western Digital's drive, the company reports that it provides 23 percent lower idle power and 49 percent better watts-per-TB. The helium-based drive also has the best density footprint in a standard 3.5-inch form factor, providing 50 percent higher capacity. The drive is also lighter in weight when compared to a standard 3.5-inch drive with 5 platters (38 percent lower weight-per-TB).
Helium's density is one-seventh that of air, meaning less drag force acting on the spinning platter stack, which in turn reduces the power used by the motor. The use of helium also allows the platters to be mounted closer together and the data tracks closer together because the fluid flow forces buffeting the platters and arms are reduced. A helium drive will run cooler and emit less noise thanks to helium's thermal conduction and lower sheer forces.
Seagate's solution is expected to have six platters that use Perpendicular Magnetic Recording (PMR) technology (pdf). The solution may also use Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) technology that would have 25 percent higher density, allowing Western Digital to offer 7.5 TB capacity in a typical 3.5-inch form factor.
We've reached out to Western Digital for a comment and we'll update here when the company responds.

If you sealed something at sea level and tossed it out in space. It would only have ~14.7 psi of air pressure in it. You could over inflate a car tire by that much and it wouldn't blow. Ever take a HDD apart? The frame is impressive. Typically a block of aluminum that has been machined out. If it was sealed up, it would likely take more than 1 bar(atmospheric) to blow the metal cover off.
I could drill a hole in the frame of one. Tap it, screw in a standard male air compressor adapter and pressurize the thing up to 130 psi. But this 6tb drive is probably going to be several hundred dollars. Kind of a waste just to see how "over built" it is(& satisfy curiosity).
I have only filled 2tb of my 3tb home server, one of these and I would be set for a good long while
If you sealed something at sea level and tossed it out in space. It would only have ~14.7 psi of air pressure in it. You could over inflate a car tire by that much and it wouldn't blow. Ever take a HDD apart? The frame is impressive. Typically a block of aluminum that has been machined out. If it was sealed up, it would likely take more than 1 bar(atmospheric) to blow the metal cover off.
I could drill a hole in the frame of one. Tap it, screw in a standard male air compressor adapter and pressurize the thing up to 130 psi. But this 6tb drive is probably going to be several hundred dollars. Kind of a waste just to see how "over built" it is(& satisfy curiosity).
I hear ya, it really goes without saying it is need based. I just can't stand clutter. My server is a family one, all legal too. Pics, HD GoPro, videos, digital books, back-ups, etc. One large drive like this or two or three smaller drives would meet my needs.
You need a gas to act as an air bearing, otherwise the head will crash into the platter. Not to mention a vacuum is bad for conducting away heat.
You can't use hydrogen because it will make the aluminum break apart, yet alone near impossible to contain, you can't use Oxygen because it's a strong "oxidizer", You could use Nitrogen(air is 70% nitrogen) but that's what we're already using and it's a limitation, CO2 is also too thick and probably worse than Nitrogen.
Not many options.
Vacuum won't work because, as mentioned above, the gas is actually used as an air bearing. It controls, with amazing precision, the height at which the heads "fly" above the platters. No gas, no flying.
Vacuum won't work because, as mentioned above, the gas is actually used as an air bearing. It controls, with amazing precision, the height at which the heads "fly" above the platters. No gas, no flying.
Yea I had the tab open for a while before posting so I missed that, I guess that's true though it could be possible tot use other techniques in a vacuum then again that would probably alter a lot of stuff, so who knows maybe we will see them sometime in the future or maybe we wont, maybe running at half atmospheric or a 10th of atmospheric pressure will be the future as you could still use gas then would be the future.