Patent ID: 7397635

Claim:
A disk apparatus comprising: a disk type magnetic recording medium, having an inner peripheral side and an outer peripheral side; and a head slider further comprising a magnetic element adapted to fly over the disk type magnetic recording medium to record or reproduce magnetic information between the magnetic element and the magnetic recording medium; a surface of the head slider opposed to the medium comprising with respect to die direction in which the medium runs, an inflow pad portion at the upstream end and a pair of side rail portions extending downstream from the inflow pad portion, a center pad at the central part, and a pair of side pads on the sides of the center pad and upstream of the center pad at the downstream end of the head slider; and at least one of the side pads having an air-bearing surface and a stepped surface of a height smaller than that of the air bearing surface, the air-bearing surface having a longitudinal extension and a traverse extension to define a substantially L-shaped structure.