Western Digital unveils world’s first helium-filled 10TB hard drive

Do you have a lot of backup drives laying around your office? Would you prefer to have them consolidated into a single, more efficient drive?

If so, Western Digital’s new 10TB helium-filled hard drive is just for you.

Increasing the capacity from its predecessors, the HGST Ultrastar He10 is a new 3.5” hard drive that fills the inside of the drive with helium instead of traditional air-filled drives. This design choice is said to create a hard drive that is 56% more efficient and far less likely to fail (only a 0.35% annual fail rate).

According to the specs, the HGST Ultrastar He10 is capable of data transfer speeds of 249MB/s, almost 25MB/s faster than its predecessors. Driving this increase in speed are a whopping seven platters, which use shingled magnetic recording (SMR) to boost areal density.

While not as fast as solid state drives (SSDs), the He10 is a perfect choice for artists shooting in 4K, virtual reality or 3D footage. Rather than having five 2TB HDDs laying around, you can have a single solution, likely with greater speeds.

Pricing is yet to be announced, but considering its 8TB sibling costs $599, it’ll likely come in between $700–900.

[via Photography Bay]