WD Introduces Helium-Filled 8TB Consumer Drives

WD has announced its first helium-filled consumer HDDs. The hard drives have 8TB storage capacity and come in internal variants and in external models such as the WD My Book.

WD lists the 8TB drives with HelioSeal on a product page. The internal 3.5″ drives are the WD Red, Red Pro and Purple, and the external ones are the WD My Book and My Book for Mac, while the My Cloud NAS system also gets an 8TB drive. In addition, 16TB appear. versions of the My Cloud and My Book with two of the helium-filled drives.

The Red and Purple hdd rotate at 5400rpm, while the Red Pro does its job at 7200rpm. The amount of cache is 128MB. With the Purple, WD focuses on long-term continuous use, such as for video surveillance. The Red should not only be used for home use, but also for, among other things, small business NAS systems, while the Red Pro is mainly intended for business use. All models are equipped with a SATA 600 interface. WD has previously released 6TB and 10TB drives for enterprise-wide applications such as cloud storage. Those drives came out through WD subsidiary HGST.

Because Helium has a lower density than air, the platters and heads have less friction, with all the advantages in terms of heat generation. This allows the use of more platters, up to seven for 3.5″ HDDs. Also, less energy is required for rotation, which results in energy savings. However, the drives must be made airtight, where HDDs still have air holes .

Recommended Euro prices have not yet been announced. WD does have price tags for the desktop HDDs on its American website; these cost about $300 each. Converted including VAT, that would amount to approximately 335 euros. The company says it will be able to ship the 8TB HDDs from April 5.