Data storage device with manipulated media mapping to control access latency of data containers

A method comprising:

• detecting, by one or more processing devices, one or more physical defects on a recording medium;
• designating, by the one or more processing devices, in a mapping of the recording medium, the one or more physical defects for exclusion from being assigned to data containers, the data containers configured for assignment of a plurality of logic blocks to the data containers, the logic blocks configured to store data to be written in an interleaved pattern across a plurality of sectors based on a distributed sector encoding scheme;
• and
• designating, by the one or more processing devices, one or more artificial defects adjacent to the one or more physical defects for exclusion from being assigned to the data containers in the mapping.

One or more processing devices comprising:

• means for detecting one or more physical defects on a recording medium;
• means for designating, in a mapping of the recording medium, the one or more physical defects for exclusion from being assigned to the data containers, data containers configured for assignment of a plurality of logic blocks to the data containers, the logic blocks configured to store data to be written in an interleaved pattern across a plurality of sectors based on a distributed sector encoding scheme;
• and
• means for designating one or more artificial defects adjacent to the one or more physical defects for exclusion from being assigned to the data containers in the mapping,
• wherein the means for designating the one or more artificial defects leaves a remaining functional portion of the track to have a size equal to a size of an integer number of the data containers.