Software to walk a harddisk: How much torque (Nm) is developed in a modern hard disk head during a seek?

Once - years ago - I heard a story about a "new" IBM(?) harddisk, that had it's "own" CPU & firmware built in. Hence a key feature was that no programmer could not write a program that could damage this hardware. For example: cause the head to track and CRASH into the drive enclosure.

IIRC there was a $ reward for anyone that could write such a program.

Well.... of course someone gave it a go, and wrote a program that would race the head across the disk, then slowly track back to the start. The net effect was the on each seek the disk moved a fraction of an inch closer to the edge of the test bench in the lab, and eventually fell off...

(Maybe someone has a URL detailing the background to this - probable - urban myth?)

This motivates my key question: How much torque (in Nm) is developed in a modern hard disk head during a seek?

Do the brushless DC electric motor of modern disk read-and-write heads have the gusto that came with yesteryear disk platers?

I'm guessing that a modern disk read-and-write heads and smaller and (relatively) much smaller. Also the angular momentum of the modern high speed platters would damp any attempts to move the drive. (But it would be freaky to see a SAN "walk" across the server room! ☹)

From serverfault NevilleDNZ

• A gyroscope spins faster and is far heavier than any hard disk. You can "walk" a gyroscope enclosure but I doubt you'll walk a SAN (or anything with hard disks).

  Background:

  If you apply a force to a gyroscope, the force is actually applied 90 degree round the direction of rotation aka "precession. If the gyroscope is neither spinning at full speed nor stable, and it is not secured, then it can move the whole enclosure. "Walking" refers to this movement because the act of stopping (crashing into a wall etc) generates another force etc.

  This is why you allow 30 minutes for gyros to spin down before moving them for safety

  Note:

  Precession will still apply to a hard disk but it's minor. But moving a PC quickly enough with a spinning HDD could generate enough precession for a head crash.

  NevilleDNZ : Yours is the best answer, esp given that the question has been closed.
  From gbn