A spinstand study on the feasibility of shingled write recording

Super-paramagnetic effect will limit the areal density beyond 1 Tb/in² of the perpendicular magnetic recording in hard disk drive technology. Based on the road map predictions, the entire industry is working towards alternative technologies such as heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR), bit patterned media (BPM), microwave-assisted magnetic recording (MAMR) and shingled write recording (SWR) or shingled magnetic recording (SMR). Shingled write recording is based on overlapping the written data tracks; hence, some guard band spaces are saved. Shingled write recording appears as one of the promising candidates to extend the areal density in the future. In this study, we focus on the feasibility of the shingled write recording using the spinstand testers. The experimental results on the writability parameters measured on the spinstand testers such as reverse overwrite (ROW), signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and bit error rate (BER) suggest that the conventional perpendicular magnetic recording could be extended using the shingle method. In addition, a wide range of the writer widths could be used for the shingle unlike the conventional perpendicular recording. However, the read channel integration needs to play a major role to make the shingled write recording become truly feasible.