Patent ID: 8190970

Claim:
A probe-based data storage device comprising: a storage surface having an array of A storage fields; a probe array comprising A probes for writing data to respective storage fields, said A probes corresponding to the A storage fields; and an apparatus for controlling writing of blocks of user data in the array of storage fields, wherein data is written to said array of storage fields by the corresponding array of probes, said apparatus comprising: a codeword generator for coding the blocks of user data to produce a plurality of C-byte codewords such that r*C=k 1 *A where r is the number of codewords and k 1 is an integer >1; a sub-block generator for producing A sub-blocks of k 1 bytes from the codewords by selecting successive bytes of each sub-block cyclically from the r codewords; a write controller for controlling writing of the A sub-blocks via respective probes to the corresponding storage fields of the storage field array such that the codewords are distributed across the A storage fields of the storage array, with bytes from a same codeword always being r bytes apart.