

I can only comment on thermal recalibration in general. Some new
drives perform it in order to increase overall integrity of data
writes. Basically, the firmware instructs the actuator to perform
a test to see if the data tracks are within a certain physical
tolerance, since when the media heats up or cools down, *some*
track drift is inevitable, and the drive has to monitor it. This
becomes especially critical at very high recording densities, and
so was used primarily on very large-capacity mechanisms, but it
seems to be finding its way into more smaller drives as a way of
boosting the drive's long-term reliability and MTBF ratings.

I first became aware of thermal recalibration when it was pointed
out that the technique conflicts with prolonged write times when
digitizing, say, audio or video to hard disk. Some manufacturers
explicitly state that drives with thermal recalibration are NOT
to be used for applications that have prolonged disk writes.

Hope this helps.