Patent ID: 8390950

Claim:
A disk drive filtering system for reducing the obstruction of air flow through a bypass channel associated with a disk drive, the disk drive filtering system comprising: a selective filtering region disposed within a bypass channel; an electrostatic pass-by filter disposed within the selective filtering region, the electrostatic pass-by filter comprising: a negatively charged electrostatic pass-by filter portion on a first side of the selective filtering region; a positively charged electrostatic pass-by filter portion on a second side of the selective filtering region, said second side different from said first side, wherein the positively charged electrostatic pass-by filter portion and the negatively charged electrostatic pass-by filter portion are configured to filter the air that flows through the selective filtering region; and a filter free region disposed proximate to the positively charged electrostatic pass-by filter and the negatively charged electrostatic pass-by portion, wherein a portion of the air is allowed to flow substantially unobstructed through the selective filtering region.