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All issuesVolume 323, Issue 3IT NewsStorage

What Is A Helium Hard Drive?

How-To Geek, Wednesday, February 19th, 2025

Helium hard drives, a significant leap in hard disk drive (HDD) technology, offer promising improvements in storage density and power efficiency. The use of helium is the key to these advancements. Here's everything you need to know.

What's Helium Doing in Hard Drives?

HDDs store data on spinning magnetic disks called platters. These platters are sealed inside an enclosure along with the necessary electronics. Traditionally, this enclosure has always been filled with regular air that we breathe. However, as the demand for more storage sky-rocketed over the last couple of decades, HDD manufacturers started using helium instead of air to allow them to produce high-capacity HDDs that wouldn't be possible with air.

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