A disk drive including a disk drive base, a disk coupled to the disk drive base, and a head stack assembly coupled to the disk drive base. The disk drive further includes an airflow diverter filter component disposed upstream of the head stack assembly with respect to disk rotation induced airflow for modifying the disk rotation induced airflow adjacent the head stack assembly. The filter component includes a first filter element disposed adjacent the disk surface, a second filter element disposed between the first filter element and the head stack assembly, and a third filter element having a porosity finer than the first and second filter elements. The third filter element is generally radially further than the second filter element from the axis of rotation. The disk rotation induced airflow generally enters the filter component through the first filter element and exits through the second and third filter elements.