Apparatus and method for efficient defect management in a magneto-optical data storage system

摘要

An apparatus and method for efficient defect management in a magneto-optical data storage system store a map of current and predicted defective physical addresses of a recording disk, and then skips defective data wedges to more completely utilize the non-defective recording surface area available for a given track. The invention also stores groups of physical addresses that share defects to decrease the number of entries in the map of defective physical addresses, and also to increase the effective defect management capacity of existing hardware and software.