Patent ID: 6930857

Claim:
A disk drive comprising: a base; a cover; at least one disk mounted to a spindle motor for rotation within the disk drive; a head stack assembly (HSA) including an actuator assembly pivotally coupled to the base of the disk drive to support a head gimbal assembly (HGA) having at least one head for writing and reading data to and from the at least one disk; a continuous separator plate including a substantially circular continuous outer circumference, a substantially circular continuous inner circumference, and a continuous radial portion defined between the substantially circular continuous outer circumference and the substantially circular continuous inner circumference, wherein the continuous radial portion is to be disposed between the at least one disk of the disk drive and one of the cover or the base of the disk drive and includes a disk side that faces the at least one disk and an opposite side that faces one of the cover or the base, respectively; and an HSA accommodation section of the continuous radial portion to accommodate the HSA including a stepped section to accommodate the HSA, the stepped section being raised relative to a non-stepped planar section of the opposite side of the continuous radial portion of the continuous separator plate.