Flexible Support Mechanism for Hard Disk Drives to Decrease Vibration Disturbance

A flexible support mechanism (FSM) for hard disk drives (HDDs) was devised, prototyped, and evaluated. This mechanism intercepts the external vibration of a frequency lower than its natural frequency; therefore, vibration disturbance in the HDD is decreased. Moreover, the resonance frequency of an HDD with an FSM is lower than that of an HDD alone, and the servo compensation ratio of HDDs is larger at a lower frequency band. The FSM has a high interception ratio to the external disturbance in an HDD for those reasons. Reducing the head positioning error (HPE) of an HDD is therefore possible by applying this FSM. The data transfer rate of an HDD decreases when the HPE increases because a longer read-write time is required. By applying an FSM and reducing the HPE, degradation of the read-write performance by vibration disturbance can then be prevented. An HDD with an FSM prototype exhibited twice the input-output performance of an HDD without the FSM.