Retry mode soft Reed-Solomon decoding

Summary form only given. In this paper, we propose a new retry mode scheme for magnetic recording systems based on a soft Reed-Solomon (RS) decoding algorithm . Instead of using asymptotic bounds, we present realistic simulation results over partial response channels, and discuss some practical implementation issues such as system architecture and erasures due to disk defects and thermal asperities. Simulation results show that a significant performance improvement can be obtained without increasing hardware complexity.