Inside a failed WD WD120EMAZ 12TB Helium hard drive

Had one of my drives in my NAS fail and since it was out of warranty I decided to open it up.

It was filled with Helium and there was a very small plug under the sticker at the front, when I pulled that out you could hear the helium rush out, so it was absolutely under pressure, this I had always wondered!

Once the helium was removed, the drive still functioned but its SMART status was failed from ID 22, which is Helium Conanement Level, which had dropped from 100 to 1. Drive did last a few hours like this before having trouble reading.

So I have opened it up, which required me to grind down the welds around the edge, then you can get a blade underneath and start ripping it off. Then it looks like a standard drive underneath.

I cut the top lid so It would support the heads and allow it to run most of its seek test, though it never completes it.

I'm on the Diskcentral discord if you want to chat.

[NelsonBigGunPFan]

Never seen inside of a helium drive. Interesting

[andrewniven]

Did the helium rush out or the air rush in?

[Mathmos]

It still functioned after being opened? Most modern drives can't function for long after being exposed, especially helium drives!

[SmoggyLambGG]

Most drives would start head-banging when you remove the top cover, especially after you remove the screw on top of the actuator. Why is that?

[arnlol]

I'm really surprised a helium drive would even work at all with the helium removed, let alone try the seek test while opened. How many platters does that thing have (From trying to zoom on the headstack it looks like it might have 7 I think?)