Patent ID: 6986956

Claim:
A magnetic memory device, comprising: a drive motor and head assembly; and one or more magnetic disks comprising: a metallic substrate having a pre-smoothed, cold-worked surface with an average surface roughness less than 30 Angstroms, wherein said surface is characterized by microstructural variations caused by localized residual cold work and smearing resulting from polishing; a metallic layer on the pre-smoothed, cold-worked surface of the substrate and having a surface opposite the cold-worked surface of the substrate, the metallic layer comprising a material selected to bind to the substrate and to mask said variations of the substrate, and to reactively or catalytically nucleate the electroless plating of nickel alloy; a nickel alloy layer on the surface of the metallic layer, the nickel alloy layer having a surface prepared by polishing and texturing to support a magnetic layer; and a magnetic layer, with an accompanying underlayer and protective overlayer on the prepared surface of the nickel alloy layer, wherein the surface roughness of the nickel alloy layer prior to polishing is substantially the same as the surface roughness of the substrate.