Skip to main content

You can buy an 8TB WD helium drive right now for $300, if you want

western digital helium hard drives 8tb drive
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Helium drives have arrived on the consumer market, in the form of an eight-terabyte drive from Western Digital.

Sealing mechanical hard drives with helium gas inside reduces air friction, which in turn reduces power consumption as well as wear to the drive. Western Digital subsidiary HGST has offered helium-sealed drives since 2013, but until now, consumer drives under the Western Digital label have not offered the technology.

Recommended Videos

That’s changed: You can get your hands on a helium drive right now, assuming you’re looking for an external drive. Helium 8TB drives are already included in the My Book line of external drives, and the My Cloud line of network-connected storage. Both are available now, with 8TB editions costing $300.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

RAID versions of these externals are currently available for pre-order: the 16 TB network-attached My Cloud Mirror ($900) and the 16TB desktop enclosure My Book Duo ($550) both offer two 8TB drives with RAID capability for redundant backups.

Internal drives are coming as well: the WD Red 8TB, designated for use in NAS devices, and the WD Purple 8TB, designed for always-on security systems, are both coming soon. We couldn’t find a price for these drives, but considering an enclosed drive costs $300 we’d guess a price slightly lower than that. Edit: The 8TB WD Red is priced at $350

Western Digital is in the middle of a slow-paced merger of operations with HGST, a firm renowned for its long lasting, enterprise-grade hard drives. Observers have long wondered how long it would take for HGST’s innovations, including helium drives, to make it to Western Digital’s consumer lines.

Western Digital’s announcement comes just a few months after Seagate announced a helium-filed drive of its own, though without providing a lot of details. Seagate’s 10TB drives were expected to cost around $800, and are aimed at the enterprise market.

Justin Pot
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Justin's always had a passion for trying out new software, asking questions, and explaining things – tech journalism is the…
Chrome incognito just got even more private with this change
The Chrome browser on the Nothing Phone 2a.

Google Chrome's Incognito mode and InPrivate just became even more private, as they no longer save copied text and media to the clipboard, according to Windows Latest. The changes apply to Windows 11 and 10 users and were rolled out in 2024. However, neither Microsoft nor Google documented it.

Even though this change is not a recent feature, it's odd that neither tech giant thought it was worth mentioning. Previously, the default setting was that when a user saved text or images to the clipboard history, it was synced with Cloud Clipboard on Windows. Moreover, accessing this synced content was as simple as pressing the Windows and V keys, which poses a security risk, especially when using incognito mode.

Read more
Apple’s Vision Pro is getting the M5 chip, but that’s not what it really needs
Two people talk while one wears an Apple Vision Pro headset. Their eyes are visible through the device using the EyeSight feature.

We’ve not yet seen the full rollout of Apple’s M4 chip family -- the M4 Ultra is still yet to make an appearance -- but already we’ve just learned that the M5 chip is now in production. That means it’ll probably arrive in Macs either late this year or early next year.

If you’ve been waiting to buy a new MacBook Pro, that could mean 2026 is the year to finally pull the trigger. After all, Apple is expected to fully redesign its flagship laptop for next year’s release, and if that coincides with a powerful new M5 chip, all the better.

Read more
This Acer Predator gaming PC with RTX 4070 Ti Super is $350 off
The side profile of the Acer Predator Orion 5000 gaming PC.

You should be careful if you're thinking about upgrading with gaming PC deals, as not all machines are worth your hard-earned money. Here's one that we highly recommend: the Acer Predator Orion 5000 at $350 off from Best Buy, which brings its price down to $1,750 from $2,100. It's still not what you'd call affordable after that discount, but this is the type of machine that you will never regret buying. You're going to want to complete your transaction for it as soon as possible though, as there's no telling when the offer expires.

Why you should buy the Acer Predator Orion 5000 gaming PC
The Acer Predator Orion 5000 challenges the best gaming PCs with specifications that will let you play the best PC games at their most demanding settings. It's powered by the 14th-generation Intel Core i7 processor and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super graphics card, along with 32GB of RAM that our guide on how much RAM do you need says is the sweet spot for high-end gamers. The gaming desktop also comes with Windows 11 Home pre-loaded in its 2TB SSD, which will provide enough storage space for multiple AAA titles with all their necessary updates and optional add-ons.

Read more