How much force is it required to actually make a HDD head "jump" ?

Question

How much force is it required to actually make a HDD head "jump" ?

Don't have to be specific... and I have a Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 2500JB (If it helps)

Answer 1

simply: A huge amount

Modern hard drives are subjected to test in excess of 100Gs.  That kind of force is more than dropping on the floor, kicking it around and stepping on it.  Think about it this way...to ship a hard drive, the mail service uses fairly brute force methods of moving cargo...it stays 100% intact after all of that movement.

You probably couldn't make it jump without dropping out of a high window onto concrete or pavement.