A slider-mounted transducer has an integral wear pad for determining
interference between the transducer and a disk surface. The wear pad
intensifies interference events during disk drive testing and enables the
threshold for slider fly-height to be set at a lower level. This, in
turn, improves disk drive reliability during normal operation. The wear
pad can be a carbon overlay deposited near the trailing edge of the
slider or it can be an un-etched strip of alumina within a recessed
region of the slider. The wear pad is substantially worn away during the
test period, so it does not affect subsequent operation of the drive.