Patent ID: 8786969

Claim:
A magnetic data storage system, comprising: a magnetic head, comprising: a writer element configured to write data successively to at least two adjacent data tracks of a magnetic medium prior to being read from the magnetic medium, wherein the writer element has a width greater than a width of one data track of the magnetic medium in a track width direction, wherein the at least two adjacent data tracks comprise bits that are arranged in a staggered orientation such that centers of any two bits from the at least two adjacent data tracks do not lie along a common line in a cross-track direction, wherein the data is split into a first group and a second group prior to writing, and wherein the writer element writes data to the staggered bits across the at least two adjacent data tracks in an alternating fashion by writing the first group data to a first data track in a first pass and writing the second group data to a second data track in a second pass, the first data track being adjacent the second data track; and a reader element configured to read data concurrently from the at least two adjacent data tracks of the magnetic medium in a single pass, wherein the reader element has a width larger than the width of one data track in the track width direction; and a controller electrically coupled to the magnetic head for controlling operation of the magnetic head, the controller being configured to cause the writer element to write data successively to at least two adjacent data tracks of the magnetic medium by writing a first group of the data to a first data track in a first pass and writing a second group of the data to a second data track in a second pass, wherein the first data track is adjacent the second data track, and wherein none of the first group of the data lies on a common line in a cross-track direction with any of the second group of the data.