Traditional hard disk drives have a breather hole to equalise pressure inside the chassis. This means that data recovery work can be undertaken in a traditional clean room environment. However the new helium filled drives are hermetically sealed. Therefore any attempts to open the chassis need to be in a helium filled clean room environment. These clean facilities are proprietary and data recovery is presenting its own unique challenges.

Helium is one seventh the density of air, which is why new hard disk drives such as the He6 Helium drives run with less friction. Tighter head and platter spacing means more data density, lower power consumption and less friction – but not necessarily increased reliability.

As with all new technologies, we must spend hundreds of hours in research to understand the implications of data recovery. As we have discovered in our research, these drives need to dis-assembled in a helium filled clean environment. Otherwise the chances of a catastrophic head crash during the imaging process are greater increased. Together with the reduced tolerances and increased data densities, our data recovery experts are tested to the full!

Whilst we have not yet received any helium filled drives for data recovery, our laboratory can now boast helium filled hard drive data recovery amongst it’s arsenal of weapons against hard drive failure! By developing a sealed clean tank filled with helium, our engineers can replace damaged components and reseal the chassis to avoid further damage. Initial results have been positive and of our data recovery tests, an 80% recovery rate was achieved.

So we can confidently say that as soon as we start seeing helium filled disk drives for data recovery, we will be ready!