Particle build-up on flying sliders and mechanism study of disk wear and head-disk interface failure in magnetic disk drives

Abstract

A novel experiment was designed to promote the understanding of the mechanism of disk wear caused by particulate contamination. Obtained results suggest that the slider picks up particles and accumulates them on its surfaces as it flies above the disk. The instability of the flying slider, especially that induced by track seeking, leads to slider-disk impact which releases the accumulated particles. This results in abrasion amongst the slider, the contaminants, and the disk. The investigation also indicates that the outer two surfaces in a disk-stack and the corresponding sliders have higher likelihood of capturing flying particles. A model has been proposed to explain the observed phenomena.