For those who remain unconvinced about the importance of ESD: http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199203948 Disk drive heads and media are manufactured using Semiconductor lines, so they have the same problems. Disk drives are worse in fact, since the heads and media are exposed to air during manufacturing. I just saw a study that found head failure to be the number one long term failure. The wear study expected to find bad motor bearings or gasket break down. Instead, MR heads are usually the first item to wear out by a big margin. The study separated crashes from head degradation, so it truly is head wear out. Electronics (PCB related) failures were under .5% of the total. Billy