Abstract

Today, HDD (hard disk drive) manufacturers are increasingly turning to HAMR (heat-assisted magnetic recording) technology to increase the capacities of the HDDs. They are discovering that for this technology to work well, the environment inside the hard disk drive has to be very clean, as free from contaminants and with as little outgassing as possible. Outgassing is known to be one of the major contributors to HAMR DWC (degrade write capability) and today for the latest HAMR drives, one main source of outgassing comes from the FIPG (formed-in-place-gasket). The FIPG is often, if not always, applied onto the cover. Besides acting as a sealant to prevent particles getting into the hard disk, it is also sometimes applied on the cover directly above the VCMA (voice coil motor assembly) to press down on it to act as a damper. Its function as a damper is as the name suggests: to reduce the vibrations from the VCMA when the drive is operating. When operating in a certain environment, say inside a hard disk server rack, the fans installed in the racks might cause excitations to the VCMA. This will in turn cause the HDD to have poor NRRO (non-repeatable runout) performance and ultimately, leading to poor read/write performance. As mentioned earlier, because FIPG outgasses, hard disk manufacturers today are trying to use it as sparingly as possible or not to use it at all. However, without a damper, it may be very difficult to resolve any NRRO issues that arise as a result of VCMA vibrations/excitation. This invention hopes to improve the ISP (in‑system performance) of HDDs especially HAMR drives while at the same time have minimal impact on outgassing by 1) suggesting the replacement of having a FIPG as a VCMA damper with a better material known for minimal outgassing, and 2) suggesting possible ways how a damper based on this better material can be installed.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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