Patent ID: 8264794

Claim:
A head comprising: a slider comprising a facing surface opposed to a surface of a rotatable recording medium; and a head portion on the slider, configured to record data on the recording medium and to reproduce data from the recording medium, the facing surface of the slider having a first direction along airflow and a second direction perpendicular to the first direction, the facing surface of the slider comprising: a leading step on an inflow side of the slider, a leading pad on the leading step, a pair of side steps extending from the leading step toward an outflow end of the slider and opposed to each other across a space in the second direction, side pads on the side steps that are continuous with the leading pad, individually, a trailing step on an outflow side of the slider, provided with the head portion, and induction grooves continuously extending from the leading pad to the side pads, individually, and configured to guide introduced airflow, wherein each of the induction grooves comprises an inflow end opening on the side of the leading step and an outflow end opening on the outflow end side of each corresponding side step, the inflow end being biased and located nearer to a central portion of the slider than the outflow end, and each induction groove extends inclined outwardly relative to the first direction.