Detecting a servo pattern using a data channel in a magnetic tape drive

A magnetic tape drive, comprising:

• an equalizer configured to use servo coefficients for processing servo data and data coefficients for processing non-servo data, wherein the equalizer includes a finite impulse response (FIR) filter configured to process data read with a magnetic tape channel using the servo coefficients to generate equalized data;
• one or more low-pass filters with aggressive frequency characteristics configured to filter the equalized data to output filtered data, the one or more low-pass filters with aggressive frequency characteristics being configured to remove high frequency noise from the equalized data;
• a peak detector configured to process peaks in a waveform of the filtered data;
• and
• at least one servo pattern detector configured to detect a servo pattern in the filtered data.

A method for processing data in a read channel, the method comprising:

• receiving data read from a magnetic tape using the read channel of a magnetic tape drive;
• switching an equalizer to use servo coefficients configured to process servo data;
• applying, using the equalizer, a finite impulse response (FIR) filter to the data using the servo coefficients to output equalized data;
• applying one or more low-pass filters with aggressive frequency characteristics to the equalized data to obtain filtered data, the one or more low-pass filters with aggressive frequency characteristics being configured to remove high frequency noise from the equalized data;
• detecting peaks in a waveform of the filtered data using a peak detector, and
• detecting a servo pattern in the filtered data using at least one servo pattern detector configured to detect a servo pattern in the filtered data.