A sequential storage media system may include a head for reading or writing data to sequential storage media and a controller communicatively coupled to the head. The controller may be configured to control winding of a tape comprising sequential storage media and cleaning media between reels of a cartridge comprising the tape in order to clean a head of a sequential storage media system by passing the cleaning media over the head, after cleaning the head of the sequential storage media system, monitor a bit error rate of input/output communication between the head and the sequential storage media, and repeat the cleaning and the monitoring steps responsive to the bit error rate exceeding a threshold.

A sequential storage media system may include a head for reading or writing data to sequential storage media and a controller communicatively coupled to the head. The controller may be configured to control winding of a tape comprising cleaning media between reels of a cartridge comprising the tape in order to determine an occurrence of an event indicative of a need to clean a head of a sequential storage media system, issue to a user an indication of the occurrence of the event, determine an amount of cleaning for the head based on a bit error rate of input/output communication associated with the head, and responsive to receiving a cleaning cartridge in the sequential storage media system, clean the head of a sequential storage media system in accordance with the amount of cleaning by passing cleaning media of a cartridge over the head.

In the magnetic recording medium, a number distribution A of a plurality of bright regions, based on equivalent circle diameters thereof, in a binarized image of a secondary electron image obtained by imaging a surface of the magnetic layer by a scanning electron microscope at an acceleration voltage of 5 kV and a number distribution B of a plurality of dark regions, based on equivalent circle diameters thereof, in a binarized image of a secondary electron image obtained by imaging a surface of the magnetic layer by a scanning electron microscope at an acceleration voltage of 2 kV respectively satisfy a predetermined number distribution.

A first tone is written at a first frequency to outer tracks that surround an inner track of a magnetic recording medium. A second tone is written at a second frequency different from the first frequency to the inner track. The first and second frequencies are both lower than a frequency of an AC erase signal. A crosstrack profile of the inner track is determined based on reading amplitude of the second frequency via the read/write head.

Performance evaluation of a storage device, for example a storage device connected to a Set Top Box, for evaluating its suitability for supporting DVR/PVR functions such as recording a broadcast audio/video stream or time shifting a broadcast audio/video stream.

The present invention provides a method of surely detecting a crack in piezoelectric elements regardless of size of the crack. The method includes applying voltage to a first piezoelectric element of a pair of piezoelectric elements to cause deformation in the first piezoelectric element, forcibly deforming a second piezoelectric element of the pair of the piezoelectric elements to generate voltage from the second piezoelectric element according to the deformation of the first piezoelectric element, finding a transfer function of the pair of the piezoelectric elements based on values of the applied voltage and the generated voltage, and detecting presence or absence of a crack in the pair of the piezoelectric elements based on an objective value obtained from the found transfer function.

A storage control device configured to control a storage device including a plurality of groups each of which includes a plurality of storage regions, the storage control device includes a memory and a processor coupled to the memory and configured to store, into the memory, information associated with each of the plurality of groups and indicating whether an error region in which an error is detected is included in at least one of the plurality of storage regions of each of the plurality of groups, identify a first group including the error region from the plurality of groups based on the information associated with the plurality of groups, read data from a plurality of storage regions included in the identified first group, and identify the error region included in the first group based on the read data.

According to one embodiment, physical position information on errors on a recording medium is acquired, physical position relationship between the errors on the recording medium is calculated based on the position information, and a failure mode related to the errors is determined based on the position relationship.

A method according to one embodiment includes instructing a drive to detect a written signal burst on a magnetic tape and stop movement of the tape in response to detecting the written signal burst. A search for a defect is conducted in a location proximate to the written signal burst. An apparatus according to one embodiment includes a plurality of detector structures positioned in an array. Each of the detector structures includes a pair of conductive layers separated by an insulating material. A write transducer is aligned with each of the detector structures. A controller is configured to cause one of the write transducers to write a signal burst in response to the associated detector structure encountering a defect.

A disk drive apparatus determines a pattern of bits of a data signal applied to a magnetic write transducer of a heat-assisted magnetic recording apparatus. The magnetic write transducer applies a magnetic field to a recording medium in response to the data signal. A laser power signal is applied to a laser that heats the recording medium while the magnetic field is applied. The laser power signal is modulated based on the pattern of bits. The modulation reduces differences between track widths of recorded marks having different elapsed time values and/or increases a signal-to-noise ratio of the recorded marks having different elapsed time values.

In a storage system that implements RAID (D+P) protection groups a drive subset initially has (D+P) drives plus a spare drive with (D+P) splits. Spare splits are distributed with drive index and split index adjacency such that no single drive or split index contains multiple spare splits. When the drive subset is incremented by one drive a group of selected splits are relocated to the new drive based on drive index and split index adjacency such that no single drive or split index contains multiple members of a new protection group. If one of the drives is failing or fails, then an adjusted spare split index value is calculated for each protection group member on that drive so that the protection group members are rebuilt or relocated without placing more than one member of any protection group on a single drive. Adjusted spare split index values may be calculated in steps using the data split indices in ascending order and the largest drive indices in descending order.