It's A Digital Disease!

The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/nunyajaks on 2024-12-26 16:55:45.

I recently got a new 12TB HGST drive (huh721212ale600) to add to my collection, and like many others I had to look into the thump-every-5-seconds thing and found out that it's probably PWL. The thing that seems strange to me about PWL is that it's so frequent over such a long drive lifespan with only as much lubricant as was put in the drive before sealing it up. Does it simply never run out or degrade in the closed environment inside the HDD and can just be re-distributed over and over until the eventual death of the drive? I feel like I'm missing some obvious information, so apologies if this is a stupid question.