Systems and methods for writing servo patterns

A system, comprising:

• a magnetic tape having a servo track having physical characteristics of being written by a tape drive that monitors a lateral position and velocity of the magnetic tape passing over a servo writing head of the tape drive during a servo track writing operation and writes servo marks to the magnetic tape, a spacing between the servo marks being physically characteristic of variations in a timing of the writing of each servo mark made based on the monitored lateral position and velocity of the magnetic tape;
• and
• the tape drive configured to:
• optically monitor, by the tape drive, the lateral position of a magnetic tape passing over a servo writing head during a servo track writing operation,
• monitor, by the tape drive, a velocity of the magnetic tape relative to the head,
• write, by the tape drive, the servo marks to the magnetic tape, wherein the servo marks are magnetically defined bars arranged in base sets, each base set comprising at least two bars oriented at different angles with respect to a direction of tape travel,
• adjust, by the tape drive, a timing of the writing of each of the servo marks based on the monitored lateral position of the magnetic tape, and
• further adjust, by the tape drive, the timing of the writing of each of the servo marks based on the monitored velocity of the magnetic tape.

A tape drive for writing a servo track, the tape drive being configured to:

• read, by the tape drive, a previously-written servo pattern on a magnetic tape;
• monitor, by the tape drive, a lateral position of a magnetic tape during the reading;
• deduce, by the tape drive, written in noise in the servo pattern;
• and
• write, by the tape drive, servo marks to the magnetic tape over the written in noise.