Method and apparatus for dampening and filtering air flow effects in a hard disk drive

[0010]This invention relates to hard disk drives including at least one air filter and at least two disk dampers. Embodiments of the invention include a hard disk drive with at least one air filter mounted on a shroud wall of a base and at least two disk dampers where at least one of the disk dampers covers a fraction of the maximal covering angle configured with the air filter to optimize both the air filter and disk dampening. Such embodiments may have improved filtration performance with similar damping effect on wind-induced vibration, or disk flutter suppression, when compared to a hard disk drive where all the disk dampers have the maximal covering angle. As used herein the covering angle is measured about the center of the disks and is the angle that the disk damper covers over at least one disk surface.

[0011]Referring to the drawings more particularly by reference numbers, FIG. 1 shows an example embodiment of a hard disk drive 10 that includes a base 16 that includes a shroud