Patent ID: 8700981

Claim:
A storage system comprising: a storage medium operable to maintain a data set; a read/write head assembly operable to write the data set to the storage medium and to read the data set from the storage medium; a maximum transition run encoder operable to encode the data set before it is written to the storage medium and comprising: a prohibited pattern detector operable to detect a prohibited bit pattern in a stream of data bits from the data set; an enumeration encoder operable to encode the stream of data bits using a change of base in a representation of the stream of data bits with periodic bases and to constrain an encoded output to a maximum transition run to yield an encoded stream of data bits; and a prohibited pattern replacement circuit operable to replace a block of bits in the encoded data bits corresponding to at least a portion of the prohibited bit pattern in the stream of data bits with a first sync pattern to yield a second encoded stream of data bits; and a decoder operable to decode the data set after it is read from the storage medium and comprising: a sync pattern detector operable to detect the first sync pattern in a retrieved encoded stream of data bits from the data set; an enumeration decoder operable to decode the retrieved encoded stream of data bits in a same bit significance direction as the encoded stream of data bits was encoded to yield a decoded stream of data bits; and a sync pattern replacement circuit operable to replace a block of bits in the decoded stream of data bits corresponding to the first sync pattern in the encoded stream of data bits to yield a second decoded stream of data bits.