Achievable radial information densities in magnetic recording systems

Achievable radial information density is examined by modeling the magnetic recording system as a communication channel and then computing its capacity as a function of track width. The model includes the effects of intertrack interference (ITI) but ignores intersymbol interference (ISI). Mechanical servo error is modeled as a Gaussian random variable that is independent of head or track width. The results show that for a fixed servo error variance, narrowing the track width can significantly increase the overall information storage density. The results also reveal that the optimal head width can be greater than or equal to the track width