Patent ID: 8902718

Claim:
A disk drive comprising: a disk; a head actuated over the disk, the head comprising a fly height actuator; and control circuitry including disk access circuitry, the control circuitry operable to: during a calibration operation, configure the disk access circuitry into a calibration mode that increases a heating of the head, and periodically measure a fly height of the head to generate periodic fly height measurements that vary due to the heating of the head; generate a dynamic fly height (DFH) write profile based on the periodic fly height measurements; and during a write operation, configure the disk access circuitry into a write mode and generate a DFH control signal applied to the fly height actuator based on the DFH write profile, wherein the head further comprises a laser operable to heat the disk during the write operation, and the control circuitry is operable to configure the disk access circuitry into the calibration mode by applying a write power to the laser.