Oral History of Sandy Bolasna

Interviewed by Bruno Marchon on 2026-04-14 © Computer History Museum One of the key enablers to the bit areal density in a disk drive is a low physical separation between the Read/Write head and the disk. The first disk drive (IBM Ramac) used a small magnetic transducer embedded in a small, curved piece of ceramic that was floating over the disk surface by means of externally compressed air. Shortly thereafter, IBM successfully used hydrodynamically flying sliders that naturally flew over the spinning disks without the need for a compressor. Over the years, the disk drive industry has lowered the slider fly height from about twenty micrometers to below one nanometer today. Sandy Bolasna’s career at IBM spans 37 years, and he dedicated his activities to the understanding of the physics of the slider air-bearing, numerical modeling, and the design, micro-fabrication, and testing thereof. He was instrumental in inventing and implementing key innovations that sustained the continued scaling of the head-disk physical spacing. Note: Transcripts represent what was said in the interview. However, to enhance meaning or add clarification, interviewees have the opportunity to modify this text afterward. This may result in discrepancies between the transcript and the video. Please refer to the transcript for further information - http://www.computerhistory.org/collec... Catalog number: 300000286 Acquisition number: 2026.0098