Syquest Technology, Inc.

Seagate Technology Incorporated

Other

Stephen Robert Martin

Brenda Kaye Drake

Thomas M Durrum

David A Olivero

Alan D Romig

Certain exemplary aspects of the present disclosure are directed towards an apparatus including a base deck, a plurality of storage mediums (e.g., discs) and a plurality of disc separator plates. The base deck includes a sidewall forming a cavity to house the storage medium, with slots in the sidewall in which each disc separator plate extends. The disc separator plates extend into spaces between peripheral ends of adjacent ones of the storage medium. This arrangement can be used to provide rigid coupling of the separator plates, which can mitigate issues relating to vibration or shock. Further, air flow can be mitigated in this regard, such as to reduce effects upon a magnetoresistive transducer that reads data from the storage mediums.

Apparatus with disc separator plates

Accurately formed critical tolerance fit components are provided for fluid dynamic bearing motors, including disc drive memory systems. In an aspect, critical tolerance fit components are molded to a metal insert and include a portion of a hub, a disc seating surface, and a disc locating surface. The insert includes another portion of a hub, a sleeve, or a disc clamp retainer for a novel disc clamp. In an aspect, the plastic component is situated to cause the thermal expansion of the plastic to be restricted by the thermal expansion of a metal insert. Expensive machining of a stamped metal hub is minimized or eliminated by using the molded component portions. Strict component tolerances are provided as needed for perpendicularity relative to motor rotation for seating a disc with accurate flatness, a circumferential surface for centering the disc, and tight parallelism between a disc mounting surface and a center shaft.

Plastic critical tolerance fit component

The performance of a leaf spring disc clamp can be enhanced by increasing the flatness of an annular contact surface while the clamp is in its fully deflected, installed position. Such a disc clamp exhibits substantially improved flatness at a minor expense in applied axial force. It has been determined that a lapping process can be used to achieve a desired level of performance without fully deflecting the clamp prior to installation in a disc pack. The performance of the disc clamp may be further enhanced by providing one or more slots within a central portion of the disc clamp and joining the slots with a central aperture in the central portion in order to more uniformly distribute the clamping force around a peripheral portion of the disc clamp and thereby improve disc flatness during disc drive operation.

Disc drive disc clamp for exerting an equalized clamping force on a disc

A disk drive capable of receiving a cartridge having a disk with a diameter of about 3.5 inches which can contain at least 105 megabytes of data includes an operating mechanism for initiating and controlling the positioning of an actuator arm upon which is mounted a read/write transducer . The position of a spindle motor which is used to spin up the disk contained in the cartridge to an operating speed, the locking of the cartridge in the disk drive in an operating mode and the ejection of the cartridge from the drive . The operating mechanism can function to eject the cartridge whether or not the drive is powered up in order to be able to remove the cartridge and transport it to another disk drive or to a secured location in a plane substantially parallel to the disk contained in the cartridge . The cartridge includes a mounting mechanism for accomplishing the motion of the door from the closed to the opened position and locking mechanism for locking the door in the closed position. Further, the cartridge includes a groove which extends rearwardly and across the cartridge in order to lockingly engage the cartridge in the drive

Removable cartridge disk drive with a receiver for receiving a cartridge housing a hard disk

The performance of a leaf spring disc clamp can be enhanced by increasing the flatness of an annular contact surface while the clamp is in its fully deflected, installed position. Such a disc clamp exhibits substantially improved flatness at a minor expense in applied axial force. It has been determined that a lapping process can be used to achieve a desired level of performance without fully deflecting the clamp prior to installation in a disc pack.

Disc drive deflected disc clamp lapping process

A disc mounting system for mounting the discs of a disc drive in a fixed radial relationship to the hub of a spindle motor. The disc mounting system includes a compression spring member located between adjacent discs in the disc stack. The compression spring member has a circular cross-section, and forms a wave shape such as a sinsoidal wave shape encircling the hub of the spindle motor. When the discs are positioned in an intended relationship relative to the hub, high and low peaks on the compression spring member engage chamfers adjacent the bore of the discs, and act to center the discs relative to the spindle motor hub to prevent shifting of the discs relative to the spindle motor hub due to applied mechanical shocks and differential thermal expansion of disc stack elements.

Radial compression spring to reduce disc slip in a disc drive

A cartridge 20 for a disk drive 130 includes a door 44 which can be urged from a closed position to an opened position which is substantially within the cartridge 20 and located in a plane substantially parallel to the disk 42 contained in the cartridge 20. The cartridge 20 includes a mounting mechanism 48 for accomplishing the motion of the door 44 from the closed to the opened position and a locking mechanism 50 for locking the door 44 in the closed position. Further, the cartridge 20 includes a groove 52 which extends rearwardly and across the cartridge in order to lockingly engage the cartridge in the drive 130.

31/2 inch removable cartridge for a disk drive

A cartridge 20 for a disk drive 130 includes a door 44 which can be urged from a closed position to an opened position which is substantially within the cartridge 20 and located in a plane substantially parallel to the disk 42 contained in the cartridge 20. The cartridge 20 includes a mounting mechanism 48 for accomplishing the motion of the door 44 from the closed to the opened position and a locking mechanism 50 for locking the door 44 in the closed position Further, the cartridge 20 includes a groove 52 which extends rearwardly and across the cartridge in order to lockingly engage the cartridge in the drive 130.

Growing community of inventors

Louisville, CO, United States of America

Stephen Robert Martin