Abstract The effect of air bearing design on the wear behavior of diamond-like carbon (DLC) coated sliders is investigated as a function of “interference height” and calculated contact force for sub-ambient pressure proximity recording sliders with contact stiffness of 1 and 0.25 mN/nm, respectively. The wear rate of DLC coated sliders was measured using Raman spectroscopy during track seeking of 1-h duration on a spin-stand and 1000-h duration in a 2.5-in. hard disk drive. In addition, the effect of air bearing design on flying height variations caused by a change in the static gimbal attitude and a change in altitude was estimated. The results show that wear of DLC coated sliders is proportional to the calculated contact force and that wear of the DLC overcoat levels off after 10km sliding distance regardless of slider design. Furthermore, we found that the amount of wear of the DLC overcoat for track seeking tests of 1-h duration is almost the same as that for a track seeking test of 1000-h duration.