A method of reducing read/write head wear and disc wear through controlling fly height of the read/write head to improve reliability of a disc drive is disclosed. Absent data transfer operations, a fly height adjusted sweep cycle routine executes a sweep cycle sub-routine that positions the read/write head at an inner most data track, lowers the fly height of the read/write head and performs a seek to the outer most data track to sweep debris from a recording surface and then raises the fly height above an operating fly height for the read/write head, oscillates the read/write head to dislodge debris accumulated on the read/write head and holds the read/write head at the raised fly height while awaiting a new data transfer operation.