Head slider having a flat first step and a second flat step with a groove therein, and disk drive employing the head slider

A disk drive including a head slider accessing a disk medium, the head slider comprising:

• a parallelepiped-shaped slider base having a flat flying surface facing said disk medium;
• a flat first step formed at an air inlet end of said flying surface in such a manner as to be stepped from said flying surface;
• a flat second step only formed on said flat first step in such a manner as to be stepped from said flying surface;
• a vacuum area formed at a downstream end of an air flow flowing from said first and second steps on said flying surface;
• at least a groove formed on only a portion of said flat first step for introducing air to said vacuum area formed in said second step in such a manner that the depth of said groove so formed increases towards the surface of said first step in a direction of the air flow;
• and
• said direction in which air enters said flying surface is made to match a direction in which air enters in a CSS area.