Abstract: A two and one half inch form factor disk drive has a footprint with a length of substantially four inches and a width of substantially two and three-quarters inches. The disk drive includes a disk having a diameter of approximately 2.6 inches (65 mm), and the heads which read information from and write information to the disk are positioned only within a cylinder defined by the disk. A closed-loop, embedded servo tracking system provides a large storage capacity relative to the area of storage media available.

Abstract: In disk drives incorporating the present Peak Detection Channel invention (PDC) an important feature is the ability to locate the data on a disk. Servo timing sectors for each data track are recognized by the embodiments of the invention cooperating with system electronics at start up of the disk drive system. Variation of data pulse heights, widths and shapes over a broad range are accommodated. The invention takes advantage of the fact that typical pulse shapes (e.g. Gaussian or cosine-squared) can be closely approximated near their peak by a parabolic curve.