An apparatus according to one embodiment includes an array of transducers, where the array of transducers includes at least one contiguous group of transducers in a number specified in a format and at least two servo readers, where the servo readers are symmetrically positioned about the contiguous group of transducers and the servo readers are asymmetrically positioned relative to a centerline of the array of transducers. Moreover, a number of transducers in the contiguous group of transducers is less than a number of transducers in the array of transducers.

A method for performing error recovery for data stored on a track of a storage device, in which the method includes: receiving a request to read the data from the storage device, identifying a plurality of sectors of the track to be read in response to the request, reading the data from the plurality of sectors of the track and parity data, based on the data read from the plurality of sectors, determining whether any of the plurality of sectors corresponds to a failed sector, and recovering a portion of the data from the failed sector using the parity data and portions of the data stored in remaining ones of the plurality of sectors.

An implementation of a system disclosed herein provides a method for managing data streams of sequential nature, wherein the method provides for determining that a sequence of incoming write commands are associated with an LBA range mapped to a source band and writing data of the incoming write commands to physical blocks of a destination band assigned to the LBA range of the source band such that the data of the incoming write commands is written according to a sequential order of data receipt and in a forward write direction to sequentially fill physically-consecutive blocks in the destination band.

An apparatus according to one embodiment includes an array of 2N+1 transducers on a pitch, where at least one of the transducers within the array is configured as a servo reader. In addition, one of the transducers configured as the servo reader is flanked by transducers on each side.

According to one embodiment, a magnetic reproduction processing device includes a decoder. The decoder includes a convolutional layer including a plurality of filters, and an attention layer configured to derive a degree of contribution related to the filters. The decoder is configured to output a decoded result obtained by integrating results of processing an input signal with the filters according to the degree of contribution.

A data storage method and apparatus, and a storage system are provided. The method is applied to a storage system. The storage system includes at least one first memory and a second memory. The at least one first memory includes a plurality of storage areas. Garbage collection is performed based on each of the plurality of storage areas. In the method, a time length between the earliest expiration time and the latest expiration time in expiration time of valid data stored in a target storage area is limited to be less than or equal to a preset time length, so that the expiration time of the valid data stored in the target storage area is comparatively centralized.

Various illustrative aspects are directed to a data storage device, comprising one or more disks; an actuator mechanism configured to position heads proximate to a recording medium of the disks; and one or more processing devices. The processing devices are configured to detect a criterion for inserting padding on the recording medium proximate to data containers to be written to the recording medium, the containers configured for assigning logic blocks to the containers, the logic blocks configured to store data to be written in an interleaved pattern across sectors based on a distributed sector encoding scheme, wherein detecting the criterion comprises detecting a mismatch in size between at least a portion of a zone and an integer number of containers in which to write the at least a portion of the zone; and insert mapping indicators to a mapping to indicate padding blocks proximate to the containers.

There is provided a recording medium, a recording apparatus, a recording method, a reproducing apparatus, and a reproduction method that make it possible to correctly reproduce multilevel codes recorded at high density. A multilevel code of at least three ML values produced by coding user data into a (d,k)-RLL code of the ML values and a particular pattern of the ML values that includes a run of repeated codes which is greater than a maximum run k of the multilevel code are recorded on a recording medium. In addition, reproduction is performed from the recording medium, and the multilevel code is decoded according to the particular pattern. For example, the present technology can be applied to a recording medium, a recording/reproducing apparatus that performs recording on and reproduction from the recording medium, and the like.

There is provided a recording medium, a recording apparatus, a recording method, a reproducing apparatus, and a reproduction method that make it possible to correctly reproduce multilevel codes recorded at high density. A multilevel code of at least three ML values produced by coding user data into a (d,k)-RLL code of the ML values and a particular pattern of the ML values that includes a run of repeated codes which is greater than a maximum run k of the multilevel code are recorded on a recording medium. In addition, reproduction is performed from the recording medium, and the multilevel code is decoded according to the particular pattern. For example, the present technology can be applied to a recording medium, a recording/reproducing apparatus that performs recording on and reproduction from the recording medium, and the like.

An information recording medium (10) including a first region (11) in which medium identification information has been recorded, a data region (13), and a second region (12) which is positioned between the first region (11) and the data region (13) and in which control information has been recorded, in which an area of the first region (11) is greater than an area of the second region (12) in size.