Drive heads for storage media drive with displaced pair of sensors

Abstract

A pair of opposing drive heads are positioned in a storage media drive to read and/or write a storage media interposed therebetween. Each drive head has a sensor face that includes first and second parallel longitudinally extending air-bearing surfaces. Each air-bearing surface has generally longitudinally opposing leading and trailing terminations. The storage media travels adjacent the sensor face in a traveling direction extending along the air-bearing surfaces from the leading to the trailing terminations. A drive sensor is positioned on the first air-bearing surface a distance D from the trailing termination thereof. The trailing termination of the second air-bearing surface extends farther a distance D in the traveling direction than the trailing termination of the first air-bearing surface. The drive heads are opposingly positioned such that each first air-bearing surface is opposed by the second air-bearing surface of the opposite drive head, and such that the leading and trailing terminations of the drive heads oppose each other. Each drive sensor is overlaid by the second air-bearing surface of the opposite drive head when the drive heads are aligned with respect to the traveling direction. Each drive sensor remains overlaid by such second air-bearing surface when the drive heads are mis-aligned with respect to the traveling direction by as much as the sum of D and D