Reliability in Head-Disk-Interface with Negative Pressure Slider

The head-disk interface of a negative-pressure slider is evaluated. The damage occurring on seeking and tracking is caused by dust invading the space between the slider and the disk and wearing down the disk surface. Such damage is suppressed by controlling the cleanliness and wear resistance of the disk surface. The slider does not make contact with the disk even at a flying height of 0.1 ¿m, because damage does not occur under conditions of high cleanliness. The environment cleanliness and disk surface wear resistance (environment stress) were varied in accelerated lifetime tests; the results indicated that the interface has a long lifetime of over 300,000 hours. In start/stop operation using loading/unloading, the slider sustained no damage in over 30,000 cycles.