Are HDD's a significant consumer of the world's helium, in the scheme of things? I had thought helium was used only in a few bleeding edge drives, and they went to normal air as the tech matured.
Yep, it says right there that a "standard" helium tank is adequate to fill 10,000 hard drives. I am going to assume that by "standard" they mean 220ft^3 or 250ft^3, even though my "standard" for tanks is 125ft^3 because I can comfortably carry one of those on my shoulder.
Even though He is constantly venting to space, alpha emitters keep replenishing it.
Cheap helium from 7% CH4 wells is not going to last. But we're not going to run out of He. Just the energy to extract it.
0.376 litres for total 3.5-inch HDD volume from my first Google result: "Width: 101.6 mm, Height: 25.4 mm, Length: 146 mm". Actual volume used for platters is less than that.
Helium is light ~ 0.169 g/litre from "0.169 kg of Helium is 0.999 m3 at 15°C": https://microsites.airproducts.com/gasfacts/helium.html Note that I think comment assumed one litre of normal air not Helium: "The density of dry air is 1.2929 g/litre at STP".
https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/important-safety-info....