A Head slider 20 has a substantially rectangular parallelepiped shape
and
a disk-facing surface adapted to oppose a disk 400, as well as a head 22
disposed on the disk-facing surface for performing record/reproduce operations.
The disk-facing surface has a cross rail 261 disposed at a predetermined
distance from an upstream edge portion 36 perpendicular to the rotating
direction of disk 400, and an upstream-side intermediate-level surface 32
formed to be lower than cross rail 261 and extended from the forward edge
of cross rail 261 to upstream edge portion 36. A step depth H at
a stepped portion 38 between cross rail 261 and intermediate-level
surface 32 is set to be within a range of 5 nm to 100 nm. Thus, a disk drive
is provided that is capable of record/reproduce operations while maintaining stable
flight of head slider 20 when the relative speed between the head slider
and disk is low and that has good shock resistance.