Patent ID: 7012771

Claim:
A method of defining a storage format in multiple data storage devices, each data storage device having a plurality of storage media and a plurality of corresponding data transducer heads, each head for recording on and playback of information from a corresponding storage media in multiple zones, the method comprising the steps of: (a) (1) for a sample number of said data storage devices, measuring a performance of each head in the sample number of said data storage devices at one or more read/write frequencies per zone, and (2) for said multiple data storage devices, based on said performance measurements, jointly selecting a group of read/write frequencies, two or more read/write frequencies for each zone, and allocating one or more of the heads in each of the multiple data storage devices to each frequency in said group of frequencies per zone; and (b) in each of said multiple data storage devices, assigning one of said frequencies to each head per zone, based on a capability of that head.