Erase and write widths for narrow track high density flexible storage media applications

Summary form only given. With the continued pressure on both the cost and capacity of archival storage requirements, current flexible media roadmaps now anticipate cartridge capacities in excess of 1 TB in the very near future. The increase in cartridge capacity can be achieved by increasing the linear data density and also the number of tracks written across the width of the tape. The planned increase in track density will require the recording head to write, and read, significantly narrower track widths than used in current flexible media products. Thus, as the track widths are decreased the width of the erase bands will become an increasing proportion of the overall effective written track width. It is therefore essential that both the erase band and effective write widths are fully characterized. We report here the results of extensive investigations of the influence of the write head design and operating point on both the effective write width and erase band width. The effective erase band widths in both directions were found to be very strong functions of the write current for the media used in these tests, while the write width depended both on which pole the track was written with and write current. The relative dimension of the inverted pole also played an important role in determining the write width.