A tape drive may arrange timing-based-servo marks into a timing-based-servo pattern. The timing-based-servo pattern may be at least one M-pattern. The tape drive may select the at least one M-pattern. The tape drive may match at least two timing-based-servo marks in the at least one M-pattern. The tape drive may determine, from the matching, whether an alignment of the at least two timing-based-servo marks is demonstrative of tape-creep.

A tape drive may arrange timing-based-servo marks into a timing-based-servo pattern. The timing-based-servo pattern may be at least one M-pattern. The tape drive may select the at least one M-pattern. The tape drive may match at least two timing-based-servo marks in the at least one M-pattern. The tape drive may determine, from the matching, whether an alignment of the at least two timing-based-servo marks is demonstrative of tape-creep.

[Object] Provided is a technology that is capable of further improving a recording density of data.

[Solving Means] A magnetic recording medium according to the present technology is a magnetic recording medium in a shape of a tape that is long in a longitudinal direction and is short in a width direction, the medium including: a base material; a magnetic layer; and a non-magnetic layer that is provided between the base material and the magnetic layer, and contains one or more types of non-magnetic inorganic particles, in which the magnetic layer includes a data band long in the longitudinal direction in which a data signal is to be written, and a servo band long in the longitudinal direction in which a servo signal is written, and in the magnetic layer, a degree of vertical orientation is greater than or equal to 65%, a half width of a solitary waveform in a reproduction waveform of the servo signal is less than or equal to 195 nm, and a thickness of the magnetic layer is less than or equal to 90 nm, and the non-magnetic layer contains at least Fe-based non-magnetic particles as the non-magnetic inorganic particles, and in the non-magnetic layer, an average particle volume of the Fe-based non-magnetic particles is less than or equal to 2.010.sup.5 m.sup.3, and a thickness of the non-magnetic layer is less than or equal to 1.1 m.

[Object] Provided is a technology that is capable of further improving a recording density of data.

[Solving Means] A magnetic recording medium according to the present technology is a magnetic recording medium in a shape of a tape that is long in a longitudinal direction and is short in a width direction, the medium including: a base material; and a magnetic layer, in which the magnetic layer includes a data band long in the longitudinal direction in which a data signal is to be written, and a servo band long in the longitudinal direction in which a servo signal is written, and in the magnetic layer, a degree of vertical orientation is greater than or equal to 65%, a half width of a solitary waveform in a reproduction waveform of the servo signal is less than or equal to 195 nm, a thickness of the magnetic layer is less than or equal to 90 nm, and a thickness of the base material is less than or equal to 4.2 m.

[Object] To provide a technology for further improving the recording density of data.

[Solving Means] A magnetic recording medium according to the present technology includes: a base material; and a magnetic layer, in which the magnetic recording medium has a tape shape that is long in a longitudinal direction and short in a width direction, the magnetic layer includes a data band and a servo band, a data signal being written to the data band, the data band being long in the longitudinal direction, a servo signal being written to the servo data, the servo band being long in the longitudinal direction, the degree of perpendicular orientation of the magnetic layer being 65% or more, a full width at half maximum of an isolated waveform in a reproduced waveform of the servo signal is 195 nm or less, the magnetic layer has a thickness of 90 nm or less, and the base material has a thickness of 4.2 m or less.

An apparatus according to one approach includes a module having an array of transducers having at least two transducers. The apparatus also includes a persistent memory having stored therein data of a span of the array of transducers at a particular temperature. An apparatus according to another approach includes a module having fiducials at known positions relative to an array of transducers. The apparatus also includes a persistent memory having stored therein data of a span between the fiducials at a particular temperature. The fiducial span may be used in conjunction with the known locations of the fiducials relative to the array to characterize the span of the array.

A computer-implemented method for incrementing a tape write pass (WP) value includes identifying an action that requires incrementing a tape WP value on a magnetic tape storage device. The computer-implemented method further includes, in response to identifying the action that requires incrementing the tape WP value on the magnetic tape storage device: assigning a new tape WP value to a dataset based, at least in part, on a partition number corresponding to the data partition in which the dataset is written to.

An apparatus according to one approach includes a module having an array of transducers having at least two transducers. The apparatus also includes a persistent memory having stored therein data of a span of the array of transducers at a particular temperature. An apparatus according to another approach includes a module having fiducials at known positions relative to an array of transducers. The apparatus also includes a persistent memory having stored therein data of a span between the fiducials at a particular temperature. The fiducial span may be used in conjunction with the known locations of the fiducials relative to the array to characterize the span of the array.

A servo pattern recording method includes: determining a first servo band group that includes three or more servo bands for recording a servo pattern in which first servo band identification information having a plurality of bits is to be embedded, and a second servo band group that includes three or more servo bands for recording a servo pattern in which second servo band identification information having a plurality of bits is to be embedded, the second servo band identification information being different from the first servo band identification information; and recording the first and second servo band identification information on the first and second servo band groups, respectively, such that a combination of a first pair and a second pair is not duplicated, the first pair being a pair of servo band identification information and a phase in one servo band read by a first servo read head, the second pair being a pair of servo band identification information and a phase in the other servo band read by a second servo read head.

A servo pattern recording method includes: determining a first servo band group that includes three or more servo bands for recording a servo pattern in which first servo band identification information having a plurality of bits is to be embedded, and a second servo band group that includes three or more servo bands for recording a servo pattern in which second servo band identification information having a plurality of bits is to be embedded, the second servo band identification information being different from the first servo band identification information; and recording the first and second servo band identification information on the first and second servo band groups, respectively, such that a combination of a first pair and a second pair is not duplicated, the first pair being a pair of servo band identification information and a phase in one servo band read by a first servo read head, the second pair being a pair of servo band identification information and a phase in the other servo band read by a second servo read head.