A typical disk drive storage system includes one or more magnetic disks which are mounted for co-rotation on a hub or spindle. A typical disk drive also includes a transducer supported by a hydrodynamic bearing which flies above each magnetic disk. The transducer and the hydrodynamic bearing are sometimes collectively referred to as a data head or a product head. A drive controller is conventionally used for controlling the disk drive based on commands received from a host system. The drive controller controls the disk drive to retrieve information from the magnetic disks and to store information on the magnetic disks. An electromechanical actuator operates within a negative feedback, closed-loop servo system to move the data head radially or linearly over the disk surface for track seek operations and holds the transducer directly above a desired track or cylinder on the disk surface for track following operations.
Typically the magnetic disks 2 also comprise servo sectors 18 which are recorded at a regular interval and interleaved with the data sectors 12, as shown in FIG. 1. A servo sector, as shown in FIG. 2, typically comprises a preamble 20 and sync mark 22 for synchronizing to the servo sector; a servo data field 24 comprising coarse position information, such as a Gray coded track address, used to determine the radial location of the head with respect to the plurality of tracks; and a plurality of servo bursts 26 recorded at precise intervals and offsets from the track centerlines which provide fine head position information. When writing or reading data, a servo controller performs a “seek” operation to position the head over a desired track; as the head traverses radially over the recording surface, the Gray coded track addresses in the servo data field 24 provide coarse position information for the head with respect to the current and target track. When the head reaches the target track, the servo controller performs a tracking operation wherein the servo bursts 26 provide fine position information used to maintain the head over the centerline of the track as the digital data is being written to or read from the recording surface.
To ensure that the head remains properly aligned with the data tracks, the disks must be securely attached to the spindle. Current practice is to separate the disks in the stack with spacer rings, and position a spacer ring on top of the disk/spacer stack. Then a top ring, called a clamp, with several apertures is placed over the top spacer ring. The disks are bolted to the spindle via bolts extending through the apertures in the top clamp. Great pressure must be exerted by the bolts on the top clamp in order to prevent slippage of the disks in the event that the drive is bumped or uneven thermal expansion that breaks the frictional coupling, because once the disks slip, the drive loses its servo and the data is lost.
Disks are typically formed from aluminum or glass. Aluminum is more easily deformed, so any external stress can cause deformations to the disk. Glass, too, will deform under uneven stress patterns.
A major drawback of the current practice is that when the bolts are tightened, the top clamp and spacer become deformed due to the uneven pressures exerted by the individual bolts. The deformation translates out to the disk, creating an uneven “wavy” disk surface, which is most prominent at the inner diameter of the disk. Any unevenness (waviness) on the disk surface compounds the tendency to lose the servo, especially near the inner diameter zone closest to the spacer ring.
Further, it has been found that stresses induced on the top disk in the stack transfer down and propagate into some or all of the remaining disks in the stack. Thus, it would be desirable to reduce uneven stresses at the top disk so that the remaining disks remain flat.
Another issue encountered in the prior art is the high cost of assembling the drives. Each spacer must be placed in the drive and then the top clamp added and bolted down. This process is time consuming. To reduce assembly costs, it would be desirable to couple the top clamp and top spacer ring together so that they can be placed in the drive at the same time. This would save a processing step in that only one piece (top clamp-spacer composite) need be handled instead of two parts (top clamp and spacer ring individually).
The cost savings obtainable by using a composite structure would be increased in new high capacity drives which require only a few disks as opposed to several. For example, in a drive with five disks, five parts must be handled: the top clamp-spacer composite and four more spacer rings. In a drive with only two disks, only two parts are handled: the top clamp-spacer composite and one spacer.
Additional cost savings would be realized during manufacture of the top clamp and top spacer ring themselves, as it would no longer be necessary to machine two surfaces in such a way to match flatness.