An advanced perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) media requires continuous improvements in substrate surface morphology and defects counts in order to lower the fly height of a read/write head, reduce the yield loss related media defects, and improve the magnetic performance. A PMR media texturing process is a process used to remove asperities to generate a smoother and better quality surface without leaving circumferential textured patterns on the surface. We have developed a glass substrate mechanical texturing process, E process, using a fine texturing tape with a fiber size of 0.35 μm and small nano-cluster diamond (NCD) abrasive particles with a size of 12 nm. The E process produces a lower surface roughness Ra (from 0.21 to 0.06 nm) and results in the lowest glide avalanche (from 6.35 to 2.54 nm). These results indicate that a better quality media with low-defectivity can be obtained using the new developed mechanical texturing process. This process generates a very smooth surface with few textured scratches and adequate textured removal amount. A smoother substrate with a lower Ra leads to a narrower dispersion of rocking angle, Δθ50 of Co(0001), and half width of transition, TW50, and therefore resulting in improvements of OW and SNR.