Monitoring of extent of writing of unobscured data to improve erase performance on a magnetic medium

Abstract

A system according to one embodiment includes a processor; logic in the processor and/or a memory configured to determine a furthest physical position on a magnetic medium that unobscured data has been written to; and logic configured to store an indicator of the furthest physical position on at least one of the magnetic medium and a memory coupled thereto. A system according to another embodiment includes a processor; logic in the processor and/or a memory configured to receive an instruction to obscure data on a magnetic medium; logic configured to read an indicator of a furthest physical position on the magnetic medium that unobscured data has been written to; and logic configured to cause obscuring of the unobscured data on the magnetic medium, and terminating the obscuring upon reaching the physical position in the indicator.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.