Maxtor Corporation

Seagate Technology Incorporated

Chris Hawks

Erhard Theodor Schreck

Scott A Hughes

Thao Anh Nguyen

Donald Joseph Brunnett

Bruce C Schardt

Andrew LeFebvre

Michael L Mallary

Kazuhiro Saito

Jingbo Yu

Anthony R Hurtado

Joerg Ferber

Brian D Strom

Duc H Banh

Richard Oswald

Francis P Crimi

Lin Guo

Don Brunnett

Xiaoping Hu

Wentao Yan

Mark Heimbaugh

Douglas J Krajnovich

Tim Glassburn

Duc Bahn

Tony Hurtado

A control source and drivers for a thermal actuator fly height controlled heads in a disk drive system includes provisions for driving a heater element to dissipate various levels of power, and thus actuate the head by a desired amount, depending on whether the head is in a write mode or a read mode. Further, overshoot and undershoot are achieved as desired by providing initial values and equilibrium values and through the use of a control capacitor to provide a time constant to the drive signal to the heater element.

Method of operating read and write transducers by controlling thermal actuation

A disk drive for storing data includes a drive housing, a storage disk that is rotatably coupled to the drive housing, a slider assembly positioned near the storage disk, and a drive circuitry. The slider assembly includes a head that interacts with the storage disk during a data transfer operation. The drive circuitry performs a performance test on the head at a first HtD spacing and at a second HtD spacing that is different than the first HtD spacing while the drive is operation. The slider assembly includes a slider mover that moves the head between the first HtD spacing and the second HtD spacing. The slider mover can move the head to the first HtD spacing during the data transfer operation if the result of the performance test is a first test result and the slider mover moves the head to the second HtD spacing during the data transfer operation if the result of the performance test is a second test result.

Disk drive with performance driven head-to-disk spacing

A disk drive for storing data includes a drive housing, a storage disk that is rotatably coupled to the drive housing, a slider assembly positioned near the storage disk, and a drive circuitry. The slider assembly includes a head that interacts with the storage disk during a data transfer operation and a slider mover. The drive circuitry directs a first power level to slider mover to maintain the head at a first HtD spacing, and a second power level to the slider mover to maintain the head at a second HtD spacing, and a variable, transition power to the slider mover during a transition between the first power level being directed to the slider mover and the second power level being directed to the slider mover. The transition power is tailored to rapidly move the head between the HtD spacings.

Disk drive that varies the power to a slider mover during transitions between drive operations

A disk drive includes a rotatable storage disk, an actuator motor, a slider that magnetically interacts with the storage disk, and a drive circuitry. A portion of the slider moves between a first position wherein the slider does not contact the storage disk and a second position wherein the slider contacts the storage disk. The drive circuitry can detect when the position of the slider changes between these positions. In one embodiment, the drive circuitry monitors off-track movement of the slider to detect when the slider has moved between these positions. The drive circuitry can also current that is directed to the actuator motor that is used to compensate for off-track movement to detect when the slider moves between these positions. In yet another embodiment, the drive circuitry monitors a rotational velocity of the storage disk to detect approximately when the slider moves between these positions.

System for detecting a change in head-to-disk contact status in a disk drive

A disk drive having a drive housing, a storage disk that is rotatably coupled to the drive housing, and a slider assembly that includes a head and a slider mover. The head reads data from the storage disk during a read operation and writes data to the storage disk during a write operation. The slider mover maintains the head at a read HtD spacing during the read operation, at a pre-write HtD spacing during the read operation prior to the write operation, at a write HtD spacing during the write operation, and at an idle HtD spacing when the drive is not performing the read operation or the write operation. The disk drive includes a drive circuitry that directs a read power level to the slider mover to maintain the head at the read HtD spacing, a pre-write power level to maintain the head at the pre-write HtD spacing, a write power level to maintain the head at the write HtD spacing, and a idle power level to maintains the head at the idle HtD spacing.

Disk drive that positions a head at multiple head-to-disk spacings

A disk drive includes a drive housing, a storage disk, a slider and a drive circuitry. The slider magnetically interacts with the storage disk, and includes a read/write head that is positioned to have an actual head-to-disk spacing greater than zero nanometers during rotation of the storage disk. The drive circuitry can determine and/or monitor the actual head-to-disk spacing at any time during the operation of the disk drive based on an amplitude or a change in the amplitude of a signal such as a variable gain amplifier signal. In one embodiment, the slider includes a slider mover that receives current via the drive circuitry and causes a deformation of a portion of the slider to change the head-to-disk spacing based on the amplitude of the signal. In another embodiment, the read/write head moves during substantially consistent rotational velocity of the storage disk from a first actual head-to-disk spacing equal to approximately zero nanometers, to a second actual head-to-disk spacing that is greater than zero nanometers based on a desired amplitude of the signal.

System for monitoring and dynamically adjusting head-to-disk spacing in a disk drive

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Saratoga, CA, United States of America

Chris Hawks