Disk drive disk with landing zone having textured and untextured regions
View Patent ↗A disk storage medium and a disk drive which reduce friction during landing of the head/slider is described. The minimum fly height area of the head/slider is positioned over a texture free portion of the landing zone on the disk surface landing. In a preferred embodiment, the landing zone of a magnetic disk is a laser texture zone comprising a great number of bumps and is positioned during landing adjacent an area other than the minimum fly height area of the head/slider. The area facing the minimum fly height area of a head/slider has no bumps, i.e. is a bump free zone.
1. A disk drive comprising:
a head/slider having an air bearing surface for floating a slider over a rotating disk;
the disk having a disk substrate, a storage medium on at least a portion of a surface of the disk, the storage medium having a storage area for recording data, the disk having a circumferential landing zone on an area of the disk other than said storage area, the circumferential landing zone being partially textured;
the landing zone having a texture free zone which faces a minimum fly height area of the air bearing surface of the slider when the slider is landing and also having a circumferential bump zone adjacent to said free zone, the bump zone being formed with bumps protruding from the surface of said disk, the free zone having no bumps; and
a landing position control unit for moving the slider so that the minimum fly height area of said slider is positioned over the free zone of said disk storage medium when landing said slider;
wherein the bumps have a height above the surface such that the minimum fly height area of the slider does not touch the surface of the disk during landing.
2. A method of operating a disk drive comprising the steps of:
rotating a disk under a slider having an air bearing surface and flying the slider over the disk;
positioning the slider over an area on the disk which includes a textured area and an untextured area with the untextured area being under an area on the air bearing surface having a lowest flying height;
reducing a rotation rate of the disk to allow a portion of the air bearing surface not having the lowest flying height to contact the textured area of the landing zone first; and
stopping the disk;
wherein the textured area has a plurality of bumps protruding above a surface of the disk, the bumps having a height above the surface such that the minimum fly height area of the slider does not touch the surface of the disk during landing.
3. The method of claim 2 wherein the bumps have a height above the surface equal to or greater than a difference DHI between a fly height of a rear end portion of a side rail and a fly height of a rear end portion of the center rail.