Abstract: A disk drive is disclosed comprising a disk comprising a plurality of servo tracks defined by servo sectors. The disk drive further comprises a head comprising a read element offset linearly from a write element by a gap such that when the disk rotates, the read element reaches a servo sector before the write element. During a first operation, a first length of a beginning of the servo sector is read, and during a write operation, a second length of the beginning of the servo sector shorter than the first length is read to enable data to be written while the read element is over at least part of the servo sector.

Abstract: A disk drive is disclosed comprising a head actuated over a disk comprising a plurality of servo sectors defining a plurality of servo tracks. The servo tracks form a plurality of servo zones. A disk locked clock is synchronized relative to a servo data rate of the servo zone the head is over. A first reader/writer gap is measured in cycles of the disk locked clock at a first servo track in the first servo zone. A second reader/writer gap is measured in cycles of the disk locked clock at a second servo track in the second servo zone. The first and second reader/writer gaps are normalized to generate a normalized first and second reader/writer gaps. A third reader/writer gap is estimated in cycles of the disk locked clock at a third servo track in the second servo zone based on the normalized first and second reader/writer gaps.