I have an HGST Deskstar NAS drive in my array. Model is HDN728080ALE604, and from what I can find, it's not a helium drive (and I don't recall ever buying a helium drive). But I'm getting this in my notification email from the server:

Subject: Warning [TOWER] - helium level (failing now) is 22.

I ran a short SMART self-test and no error was reported.

 

This is the third time I've seen the message (the number is going up: 7, 16, 22) but have so far ignored it. First was in in February this year.

 

Should I be concerned?

Does it look like this?

 

 

If yes it's a helium drive.

I believe it to be an Ultrastar He8 - One of HGST (Hitachi) first attempts of a helium filled drive (He6/He8).

The drive is still in the array, so I can't see what the top looks like.

 

But here's where I saw the model number in some HGST document. It's a Deskstar NAS and there's no mention of helium anywhere.

 

 

Casual Googling shows that most (all?) HGST helium drive model numbers start with HUH and are Ultrastars. Or perhaps I'm so far behind the tech that most modern drives are helium drives so they don't bother mentioning it?

The image above is what comes up during a Google search, so it should be helium, power usage in the specs also points to the same, it uses less power than the 4 and 6TB models.