Patent ID: 7092200

Claim:
A magnetic tape drive comprising: a head unit; a servo head for trackings; and a recording head group comprising a plurality of data signal recording heads, wherein said plurality of the data signal recording heads are formed at a pitch corresponding to a pitch of adjacent data tracks on a magnetic tape, wherein a plurality of the adjacent data tacks are simultaneously formed on the magnetic tape with said plurality of the data signal recording heads, wherein said head unit is configured of a plurality of data signal reproducing heads and comprises a reproducing head group arranged in parallel with said recording head group, wherein each width of said data signal reproducing heads is set narrower than each width of said data signal recording heads, and wherein positions at both sides of said reproducing head group in a lateral direction parallel to the width of said magnetic tape are set outside both sides of said recording head group in the lateral direction of a magnetic tape so as to include a control amount error in moving said head unit in the lateral direction of the magnetic tape, whereby a plurality of adjacent data tracks are simultaneously reproduced with said plurality of the data signal reproducing heads, wherein a number of data signal reproducing heads comprised in said reproducing head group is set more than a number, Nw×(Pw/Pr)+1, where Nw is a number of data signal recording heads comprised in said recording head group, Pw is a pitch of adjacent data signal recording heads within said recording head group, and Pr is a pitch of adjacent data signal reproducing heads within said reproducing head group.