From ArsTechnica:

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (HGST), which is now a subsidiary of hard drive manufacturer Western Digital, announced yesterday that it will soon be bringing to market a sealed hard disk drive filled with helium instead of air.

Hard disk drives today are not sealed—they have breathing holes (covered inside with activated-carbon microfilters) through which air is drawn in and expelled, and as the drive's platters spin their motion drags the air inside the drive along their surface somewhat with a shearing force similar to how the bow of a boat drags water along with it, creating what's called an air bearing. The drive's read and write heads float on this air bearing just a few billionths of a meter above the drive's surface.

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