Ultrastar He8 helium level

HGST Products HGST Internal Drives
1

Hello everyone,

I purchased 8 of these:
Model Family: HGST Ultrastar He8
Device Model: HGST HUH728080ALN600

I tested each one of them individually and checked their smart counters before and after testing.

Before testing, 7 drives had this smart counter:

ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
22  Helium_Level            0x0023   100   100   025    Pre-fail  Always       -       100

The 8th drive had this set to 057 straight from out of the packaging.

After testing, 6 drives are still at 100, but one of them is down to 80.

I need to know is this oke and expected behavior, or do I need to return the ones that are down? I can see the treshold is 25 but I don’t think I should reach that within days or weeks? Helium escapes slowly, with 5 year warranty I would expect after 5 years these are still at a reasonable level?

Is there any info anywhere about this?

Thanks!

2

No one?

This morning, the 80% helium level was down to 60%.

Just now, it seems these drives are capable of refilling themselves, because it is back up to 100.

3

That’s weird. Was there anything different in the other attributes, particularly the temperature?

4

Just a few degrees, up to 40C thats all.

5

So here we go, that’s number 1:
22 Helium_Level 0x0023 001 001 025 Pre-fail Always FAILING_NOW 1

Still no reply from WD/HGST to my support ticket.