On: 6TB helium-filled hard drives bump capacity, decre...

[charonn0]

Can you please explain why hard-drives follow a flying head approach? Why don't they just perpendicularly fix the reader above the disk, rotate the disk and then use a linear actuator to move the reader back and forth - exactly like optical drives?

The read/write arm needs speed and extremely fine-tuned movement that can't be had from a mechanical actuator. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wiy_eHdj8kg