Western Digital Adds Something New to Hard Drives: Helium

Western Digital is going to announce something a little different and interesting in the world of enterprise hard drives, and you should probably pay attention to it. Starting immediately, it will begin shipping hard drives packed with helium -- as in the inert gas that makes balloons float, makes people’s voices sound funny, and which happens to be the second-most-abundant element in the known universe, after hydrogen.

Building a sealed drive that’s packed with helium eliminates the drag caused by the insides of the hard drives spinning around at high speeds, and thus allowed for platters to be packed inside the enclosure more tightly. Where you once could fit only five platters, you can now fit seven. That means more storage capacity per drive. It also means a little less power consumption overall, the company says.