Strategies for improvement of shock performance in hard disk drives

The shock performance of hard disk drives has been a serious issue for lapt op computers and AV application HDD. We investigated the nonoperational sho ck mechanism and studied several parameters that affect the shock performan ce of the head actuator assembly. It was observed that there are two import ant factors for the actuator to endure a high-shock level. One is the shock transmissibility and the other is the beating between the arm blade and su spension. To generalize the shock transmissibility, the concept of a shock response spectrum was introduced. The first bending natural frequency of th e arm blade was found to be the most important factor in determining the sh ock transmissibility By applying the shock response spectrum and avoiding t he beating, we could design a high-shock performance actuator In addition, a dynamic absorber is introduced to assist in controlling the amplitude and acceleration of the actuator arm.