Helium
Hard drives in which sealed cases are filled with helium from the inside.
The meaning of this hardware is twofold. First, the density of helium is seven times less than the density of air. As a result, such a filler creates less resistance during the rotation of the plates, which has a positive effect on both energy efficiency and heat dissipation, as well as on the speed of data access. Secondly, helium is an inert gas, which means that it does not chemically interact with the internal parts of the drive, and the likelihood of corrosion (and so, in principle, low) is reduced to an absolute minimum. On the other hand, the production of
helium HDDs is a very expensive process. Therefore, most of these drives are either professional server solutions or advanced drives for home PCs of the appropriate level.
Record technology
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CMR(Conventional Magnetic Recording) is a classic method of magnetic recording, characterized by high data access speed. CMR hard drives are used in systems where it is important to provide high (as far as possible) data read/write speed. These are user computers, security video surveillance systems, etc. The main disadvantage of CMR hard drives is the high complexity of creating volume drives, which is reflected in their price. Additionally, HDDs with CMR technology are quite “gluttonous” in terms of power supply.
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SMR(Shingled Magnetic Recording) — a promising technology for magnetic recording, which is called "tiled". SMR allows to achieve high data density, which in turn increases the capacity of memory drives and lowers their market value. SMR hard drives have slow rewriting speed, which makes such memory drives poorly suited for use in client computer systems. But they have proven themselves well when working as part of data processing centers, archives and similar systems for which low write / rewrite speed is not critical. However, some companies still produce SMR solutions for personal and even mobile systems. These HDDs use an optimized write/rewrite technology called Drive-Managed SMR (DM-SMR).
Data transfer rate
The speed of data transfer between the disk and client devices is determined by the type of drive, spindle speed, memory buffer size and connection connectors. The last parameter is the most important, since it is impossible to exceed the bandwidth of a particular interface.
Operation power consumption
The amount of power consumed by the disk when reading and writing information. In fact, this is the peak power consumption, it is in these modes that the drive consumes the most energy.
HDD power consumption data is needed primarily to calculate the overall system power consumption and power supply requirements for the system. In addition, for laptops that are planned to be used often "in isolation from outlets", it is advisable to choose more economical drives.
Standby power consumption
The amount of power consumed by the disk "idle". In the on state, the disk platters rotate regardless of whether information is being written or read or not — maintaining this rotation takes the energy consumed while waiting.
The lower the power consumption while waiting, the more economical the disk is, the less energy it consumes. At the same time, we note that in fact this parameter is relevant mainly when choosing a drive for a laptop, when energy efficiency is crucial. For stationary PCs, “idle” power consumption does not play a special role, and when calculating the requirements for a power supply, it is necessary to take into account not this indicator, but the power consumption during operation (see above).
MTBF
Guaranteed (minimum) hard drive uptime. The longer the time between failures, the more durable and reliable the device. At the same time, we note that after this time, the drive will not necessarily fail immediately — most models remain operational even after the claimed resource has been exhausted, but the manufacturer does not give any guarantees here.
MTBF
Guaranteed (minimum) number of hard drive on-off cycles after which it will remain operational. The higher this number, the more reliable the drive.
