Patent ID: 6972926

Claim:
A disk drive comprising: a disk drive housing including a housing body portion and an airflow suppressor portion extending from the housing body portion; a disk rotatably coupled to and adjacent the housing body portion, the disk including an inner disk edge, an outer disk edge and a disk surface disposed between the inner and outer disk edges, the disk surface including an inner non-data annular region; a head stack assembly rotatably coupled to the housing body portion about a pivot axis, the head stack assembly including an actuator arm including a first arm surface disposed adjacent the disk surface and an opposing second arm surface, the head stack assembly being sized and configured to pivot the actuator arm; and upstream and downstream regions disposed along the disk surface, the upstream and downstream regions being divided by a plane perpendicular to the disk surface through the pivot axis and tangent to the inner disk edge adjacentmost the actuator arm, the upstream region including disk positions which rotate towards the actuator arm; wherein the airflow suppressor portion is radially disposed substantially between the inner and outer disk edges within the upstream region and extends substantially entirely from the housing body portion beyond the second arm surface towards the disk surface for modifying disk rotation induced airflow upon the head stack assembly adjacent to the disk surface, the airflow suppressor portion includes a main section disposed substantially between the inner and outer disk edges and an inner disk limiter section extending from the main section towards the inner non-data annular region.