An air-bearing head slider for supporting an electromagnetic transducer opposite to a rotating recording media or magnetic disk. A slider body has a surface having a leading or air-entry side and a trailing or air-delivery side. Two rails are provided on the surface of the slider body and has floating surfaces opposite to the rotating magnetic disk for generating a floating force. The two side rails extend along a direction of air flow generated by the rotation of the magnetic disk and define a relatively shallow groove between these two rails. The groove has a width-enlarged portion at which the width of the groove is enlarged, so that a negative pressure is generated in such a manner that the slider body is attracted to the rotating magnetic disk. Inclined surfaces are formed on the air-entry sides of the floating surfaces of the rails. An inclination angle of the inclined surface is not more than 3.degree. and not less than 0.5.degree. and a length of the inclined surface is not less than 50 .mu.m and not more than a half of a length of the rails in the direction of air flow.
An angle .theta.1 made between a supporting surface S of a slider and an imaginary plane C in which a first border line and a second border line of a tapered surface lie, and an angle .theta.2 made between the supporting surface S of the slider and an imaginary plane D in which a first border line and a second border line of a tapered surface lie, respectively fall within a range of not less than 5 degrees but not more than 14 degrees.
A head slider has, on its front face opposing a disk, a positive pressure generating section and a negative pressure generating recess, and a sloped face slopping toward the air outlet side. By virtue of the sloped face, the negative pressure hindering with high-speed unloading operation of the head slider can be decreased quickly. Thus, at the time of unloading, an additional load is not necessary for the suspension, and the stroke of the suspension for raising the head slider can be shortened. Therefore, a disk drive which is thinner, smaller, and capable of high recording density can be realized.
Disclosed herein is a disk drive including a housing having a base, a disk rotatably mounted in the housing and having a plurality of tracks, a negative pressure type head slider having a transducer for reading/writing data from/to a disk, an actuator for moving the head slider across tracks of the disk, a mechanism for controlling the actuator to load/unload the head slider with respect to the disk, and a ramp member fixed to the base for supporting the head slider unloaded. The actuator includes a suspension having a gimbal, a reinforcing plate fixed to the suspension, and the head slider mounted on the gimbal. The reinforcing plate has a pivot for supporting the head slider at a position shifted from the longitudinal center of the head slider toward an air outlet end of the head slider by a distance less than 20% of the length of the head slider.
