Method and apparatus for distributing wear in a disc stack. A data transducer is used to record data to a data recording surface in the disc stack. Performance statistics are accumulated including a dwell metric value indicative of dwell time of the transducer adjacent a selected radial location and an operational life metric value indicative of accumulated elapsed operation of the transducer. Data are migrated from the selected radial location to a target location within the disc stack responsive to at least a selected one of the dwell metric value or the operational life metric value. In some cases, the dwell metric value may indicate an estimated amount of lubricant disturbance and the operational life operation may indicate operational hours of a heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) element. The target location may be on a different data recording surface having an associated transducer with a lower operational life metric value.