This invention stems from knowing that a head gimbal assembly has twice as much of its mass centered on its base plate as it has on its slider performs better in terms of resilience to mechanical shock than one with twice as much mass on the slider as on its base plate. The inventors realized that while these two configurations in normal operation are almost identical, during the impulse and after shocks, the slider with the smaller ratio of mass to the base plate performs better. The invention includes manufacturing methods for the head gimbal assembly, the head stack assembly, and the hard disk drive, as well as these items as products of their respective manufacturing processes.