Effective reduction of reader noise degradation in hard disk drives by thermal aging

In recent years, the volume of hard disk drives (HDD) production shifts from mobile to nearline class. The need of capacity is met mainly with more recording disks and heads in the HDD. In 2012, the average number of recording heads in a HDD was 3.25, while the nearline class of HDD under development by the end of 2012 contained as many as 14 heads in one HDD. As the reliability risk increases linearly with the number of heads per HDD, a 75% reduction in reliability failure of heads was required for the reliability of nearline products.