A suspension having a magnetic head assembly 1 mounted thereon is provided, wherein the magnetic head assembly comprises: a write head 1-2; a read head 1-1; and a resistive heating element 1-3 for controlling the flying heights of the magnetic heads, wherein the wires HTx and GTx for the resistive heating element is disposed such that they sandwich the wires RxX and RxY for the read head. The wires for the resistive heating element may be disposed between the wires for the write head and the wires for the read head. Furthermore, the waveform of the current or voltage to the resistive heating element has a time constant of 1 .mu.sec or more, the resistive heating element having wires disposed near the wires of the read head.
A hard disk drive with a control circuit that controls a heating element in a head of the drive. The heating element is driven by a voltage. The control circuit varies the voltage during read and write operations of the drive. The voltages are varied to minimize fluctuations in the flying height of the drive during the write operations.
A composite type thin-film magnetic head is provided, which comprises: a write head element; a pair of terminal pads for the write head element; a pair of lead conductors for the write head element, electrically connecting the write head element to the pair of terminal pads for the write head element; a read head element; a pair of terminal pads for the read head element; and a pair of lead conductors for the read head element, electrically connecting the read head element to the pair of terminal pads for the read head element. The pair of lead conductors for the write head element and the pair of lead conductors for the read head element are formed into patterns that have no overlapped portions with each other through only an insulating layer.
In a magnetic disk apparatus, mounting of plural heating elements to a magnetic head slider is permitted. Thermally assisted magnetic recording from inner to outer surface is permitted at a small amount of power consumption. In one embodiment, the magnetic disk apparatus has a magnetic disk on which magnetic information is recorded, a magnetic head slider having an air bearing surface for floating from the magnetic disk in proximity thereto, and a rotary actuator moving over the disk arcuately while supporting the magnetic head slider by a suspension. A recording element acting to record magnetic information on the magnetic disk, a playback element acting to play back the magnetic information recorded on the magnetic disk, and plural heating elements acting to locally heat the magnetic disk are carried on the magnetic head slider. A circuit for switching energization to the plural heating elements and according to information about the direction of a DC power supply VH, frequency contained in an AC power supply, or the like is formed.
