Abstract: The present invention is directed towards air-bearing sliders that are used in disk drives. The invention involves pitching a slider so that the leading portion of the slider is closer to the disk than the trailing portion of the slider. The negative pitch reduces the sensitivity of the slider to ambient air pressure, radial position, and to data accessing over the disk. When used in combination with a reverse-flow disk drive, negatively pitched sliders facilitate the routing of traces to the head.

Abstract: A head arm assembly (HAA) includes a head slider having at least one head element, an arm member for supporting the head slider at one end section, an actuator, mounted to the other end section of the arm member, for rotationally moving the arm member in a direction substantially parallel with a recording medium surface around an axis for horizontal rotation of the arm member, and a load generation unit for generating a load for energizing the head slider in a direction to the recording medium surface by rotationally moving the arm member in a direction substantially orthogonal to the recording medium surface around an axis for vertical rotation. The position of the center of gravity of the HAA is located at a different position from the axis for vertical rotation on a center axis of the arm member.

Abstract: When a disk drive is running, airflow is generated in the disk drive. The disk drive includes a tray and a housing. A plurality of through-holes are disposed on the tray, and the housing accommodates the tray therein. While airflow flows over the through-hole, noise is generated. Walls are formed on the rim of the through-hole to reduce this noise. A sponge for absorbing noise is adhered on the inner top portion of the housing for absorbing noise. As holes are located on the front end of the tray for guiding airflow, noise is reduced to a lower level.

Abstract: A disk drive (10) includes a plurality of thin-film members (36) for respectively covering the desired contour portions in a plurality of suspension arms (26) of an actuator (20). Each thin-film member (36) is fixedly attached to the surface of the suspension arm to cover the contour portion around a through hole (34) formed in the corresponding suspension arm (26) for reducing the moment of inertia, so as to cover the through hole. The thin-film member (36) substantially makes the contour portion around the through hole of the suspension arm (26) flush, and the air flow caused around the storage disks (16) rotating at high speed is guided smoothly along this contour portion. As a result, the air flow is stabilized, and the influences such as vibration on the actuator (20) are suppressed.

Abstract: A data storage device includes an enclosure case and a circuit board attached to an outer surface of the enclosure case, the enclosure case containing a spindle motor and a circular movement actuator, the spindle motor being for rotating a storage medium, the circular movement actuator being for controlling a position of a read and write head for reading data from the storage medium and for writing data to the storage medium, the circuit board having an interface cable connector at one end portion thereof for establishing a connection to a host. The circuit board is located between the interface cable connector and the spindle motor, and is attached to the enclosure case by use of a plurality of fastening members. An acceleration sensor is attached to the circuit board next to the fastening members for detecting vibrations applied to the data storage device in a rotation direction in a plane along the circuit board.

Abstract: A library apparatus in which a plurality of cartridges can be charged or discharged at the same time, with a simple and compact configuration of a magazine load/unload portion, is disclosed. A plurality of cartridges each containing a storage medium are accommodated in a magazine. The cartridges are moved to a drive unit by a built-in accessor thereby to process the storage media. A charge/discharge mechanism for setting the magazine in the apparatus is configured of an outer door arranged on the front of a frame unit for establishing communication between the exterior and the interior of the apparatus and adapted to be opened/closed manually from outside, an inner door arranged on the back of the frame unit and opened/closed mechanically by the insert/discharge operation of the magazine, and a lock mechanism for the inner and outer doors arranged under the frame unit.

Abstract: A suspension assembly which can be energized to provide in-situs fly height adjustment for a head of a disc drive or energizable to adjust preload force for CSS. The suspension assembly includes a shape memory flexure element having an energizable length differential. In one aspect, the flexure element is integrated with a flexible suspension circuit which provides advantages for manufacture and assembly. In another aspect, the flexure element is coupled to a bending portion of the head suspension assembly and energized to adjust flexure of the suspension assembly relative to the bending portion.

Abstract: A positioner (20) for a disk drive (10) that includes a magnet assembly (52), a conductor assembly (54), and a control system (22) is provided herein. The magnet assembly (52) includes a pair of magnet arrays (56A) (56B) and a pair of spaced apart flux return plates (75A) (75B). The conductor assembly (54) includes a coil array (78). The coil array includes a first portion (84) and a second portion (86) that are positioned substantially perpendicular to a longitudinal axis (43) of an E-block (16). The control system (22) directs current to electrically excite the first and second portions (84) (86) to generate a first force F1 and a second force F2 which are (i) parallel to the longitudinal axis (43) of the E-block (16), and (ii) equal in magnitude and directionally opposite to better position a data transducer (50) on a target track (32) of a storage disk (28).

Abstract: There is provided a magnetic disk drive in which a flying-height fluctuation produced by the operation of a fine actuator is decreased, the reliability is high, and recording density is high. For this purpose, the magnetic disk drive is configured as described below. The magnetic disk drive has a suspension including a base plate connected to a carriage, a load beam fitted with a slider, and a fine actuator which is provided on the base plate and finely moves the load beam. The configuration is such that the shortest track travel time using the fine actuator is larger than the inverse number of the local maximum of a flying-height fluctuation frequency of the suspension by the fine actuator. Also, the configuration is such that the shortest track travel time using the fine actuator is larger than the inverse number of the natural frequency of first torsion mode of the suspension by the fine actuator.

Abstract: A thin-film magnetic head comprises a medium facing surface, a bottom pole layer, a top pole layer, a recording gap layer, and a thin-film coil. The bottom pole layer and the top pole layer are coupled to each other via a coupling portion located away from the medium facing surface. The coupling portion has an end face facing toward the medium facing surface. The end face includes a curved surface convex toward the medium facing surface. The thin-film coil has a conductive layer of three turns disposed around the coupling portion. The first turn of the conductive layer from an inner side thereof includes a portion disposed between the end face of the coupling portion and the medium facing surface. This portion has a minimum width of the conductive layer at a position on a virtual line connecting the end face of the coupling portion and the medium facing surface in the shortest distance, and increases in width with distance from the virtual line.

Abstract: A disk cartridge is provided in which if the width of the disk cartridge is W1 and the outside diameter of the disk is D1, then W1 is about the same as D1. Inside the disk cartridge is a disk space in which the disk can rotate. A movement restricting portion restricts movement of the disk in the direction parallel with a disk surface. A cutout that extends through into the disk space is provided in part of a surface forming the width of the disk cartridge. A protrusion is provided in the surface adjacent to the surface in which the cutout is provided and at a position near the cutout.

Abstract: Provided are a thin film magnetic head and a method of manufacturing the same, which can prevent an output decrease without impairment of productivity and other characteristics, while adapting to an increase in a recording density. In the thin film magnetic head, an MR film is sandwiched in between first and second gap films having electrical insulating properties, which are sandwiched in between first and second shield layers. The first shield layer has an inner layer and an outer layer laminated in order from the MR film, and the second shield layer has an inner layer and an outer layer laminated in order from the MR film. The respective inner layers of the first and second shield layers have hardness higher than that of the respective outer layers thereof so as to prevent the first and second shield layers from deforming.

Abstract: An object of the invention is to inhibit a turning force of a magnetic disc apparatus from being reduced. In order to achieve the object, there is provided a magnetic disc apparatus having a rotor to which a magnetic disc fixed, and a stator which is filled with a resin between stator coils, wherein a member having a lower expansion coefficient than a thermal expansion coefficient of the resin is arranged between the stator coils.

Abstract: A process for producing a magnetic head attaining high speed and high density recording, excellent in reproducibility and relatively inexpensive is provided as well as a magnetic head and a magnetic disk unit. A lower yoke film, an insulating film supporting a thin film coil and an upper yoke film connected at a back end thereof to a back end of the lower yoke film are consecutively piled on a back end surface of a flying slider, and a magnetic pole films and a deposited at a tip end of at least one of the lower yoke film and the upper yoke film, so as to form a magnetic gap. The gap of the surface of the magnetic pole facing a magnetic recording medium is determined by the working pattern of the thin film; therefore, a magnetic pole having a high aspect ratio can be easily produced.

Abstract: The present invention provides a recording and/or reproducing apparatus using a magneto-optical disc (3) as a recording medium, which includes a recording and/or reproducing mechanism (7) for recording and reproducing information signals to and from the magneto-optical disc (3) rotatably housed in a disc cartridge (2), a support base (19) which supports the recording and/or reproducing mechanism (7), and a impact drive mechanism (9) which causes the electromechanical-transduction element (25) to lengthen and shorten corresponding to driving pulses to shift the drive shaft (24) along the shaft direction thereof so as to cause the movable portion (27) to slide along the shaft direction of the drive shaft (24) together with the support base (19), and the recording and/or reproducing mechanism (7) and the impact drive mechanism (9) are arranged within a projection area of the openings (4a), (4b) of the disc cartridge (2) for exposing a part of the magneto-optical disc (3) to the outside from the inner to the oute

Abstract: An embodiment of a magnetic head of the present invention includes a media heating device that is fabricated within the magnetic head structure following the fabrication of the read head element of the magnetic head. The media heating device is preferably fabricated between the first and second magnetic pole layers and close to the ABS surface of the head. The heating device includes electrical leads and an electrically resistive heating element that is preferably comprised of TaSiN, NiCr or NiFe, and in the present invention one or both of the magnetic poles are utilized as an electrical lead of the heating device. The heating device serves to heat the magnetic media immediately prior to the passage of the magnetic media beneath the pole tip, which lowers the localized coercivity of the media and facilitates the writing of data to the media by the write head element of the magnetic head.

Abstract: A disc cartridge for receiving a disc includes a case which accommodates the disc and at least one centering spring which prevents deviation of the disc in the case. Thus, a gap in which the disc moves in the disc cartridge is restricted so as to reduce a length in which a disc clamp of the disc contacts a disc clamp guide inside a disc drive system. Accordingly, the height of the disc clamp is reduced so as to reduce the thickness of the disc cartridge and miniaturize the disc cartridge.

Abstract: Each lock portion (15) has a front portion (23) including an anchoring pawl (24) and a back portion (25) extending in a direction opposite to the front portion. Therefore, when a slider (14) withdraws, each back portion comes into contact with the inside surface of a back wall (10) of a cassette shell (4) and each lock portion rotates in an unlocking direction. A bottom surface (109) defining each recess between engaging teeth (107) has a central portion which protrudes in a chevron shape. A corner of each protrusion has tapered surfaces (110?) and (110?). An anchoring pawl of each lock portion has a flat surface that comes into contact with one inclined surface (109?) of a chevron-shaped portion of any one of the recesses and one tapered surface (110?) of a protrusion disposed behind the adjacent recess.

Abstract: An air flow control device for reducing turbulence on a rotating multi-disc stack. Air flow control device includes a first air dam having cavities formed by a series of alternating plate sections forming gaps therebetween adjacent plates. Gaps define cavities capable of receiving discs when disc stack is rotating. A method for writing data onto an annular writeable surface of a plurality of discs including the steps of mounting the plurality of discs into a coaxial stack, extending one or more dam plates each between a consecutive pair of the plurality of discs and adjacent at least a selected one of the writeable surfaces; and writing data onto the selected surface while a first one of the dam plates overlaps enough of the selected surface so that the first dam plate limits a windage-induced error in the written data.

Abstract: An area in which an insulating film is formed over a substrate of a recording/reproducing separated type head is limited to the vicinity of a GMR film. This enables heat of Joule heating by a coil to be guided to the substrate without being obstructed by the insulating film. Electrodes, an upper shield film, a lower shield and a lower pole that are formed in-between are metallic thin films of high thermal conductivity, and accordingly have little influence. Similarly, gap films and a separation film that are positioned in-between, though they are electrically insulating films made of A12O3, have no great influence because of their thinness. According to the invention, a rise of the head's own temperature is restrained by efficiently radiating heat generated by the head itself to the substrate. As a result, it is thereby made possible to provide a highly reliable recording/reproducing separated type head whose deformation quantity is smaller and which can avoid coming into contact with a recording medium.