Patent ID: 8479086

Claim:
A data processing system, the data processing system comprising: a data detector circuit operable to apply a data detection algorithm to a first data set guided by a decoded output to yield a detected output; a data decoder circuit operable to apply a data decode algorithm to a second data set to yield the decoded output, wherein the second data set is derived from the first data set; a reliability monitor circuit operable to calculate an error rate based at least in part on an output selected from a group consisting of: a third data set derived from the decoded output, and the first data set; a parameter modification control circuit operable to: select a first value for a parameter and to store a first instance of the error rate corresponding to the first value; select a second value for the parameter and to store a second instance of error count corresponding to the second value, wherein selecting the second value includes: determining a search direction based at least in part on the first value; and using the search direction and a step size to calculate the second value; and select one of the first value and the second value based at least in part on a comparison of the first instance of the error rate and the second instance of the error rate.