Probe position error detecting method and apparatus in probe-based data storage system

摘要

Provided is a probe position error detecting method and apparatus in a probe-based data storage system. The method includes: preparing servo codes, which are Gray codes, whose Hamming distance is 1 and satisfy an alternately existing condition for Q (a natural number) and Q+1, which are the numbers of '1' bits of codewords of the Gray codes; and detecting a probe position error from a signal read by a servo probe when the servo probe consecutively scans '1' bits of codewords of the servo codes when tracking. The apparatus includes: a plurality of servo probes; a tracking condition checker that, when servo codes, which are Gray codes, whose Hamming distance is 1 and satisfy an alternately existing condition for Q (a natural number) and Q+1, which are the numbers of '1' bits of codewords of the Gray codes, are prepared, checks a tracking condition that the servo probes consecutively scan '1' bits of codewords of the servo codes when tracking; a plurality of position error detectors that correspond to the plurality of servo probes, respectively, and detect probe position errors from signals read by the plurality of servo probes; and an average position error calculator that calculates a mean value of position errors corresponding to servo probes, which consecutively scanned '1' bits, determined by the tracking condition checker among the position errors detected by the plurality of position error detectors. Accordingly, probe position errors can be detected with a stable noise characteristic using a less number of probes.