Partial-response maximum-likelihood

In computer data storage, partial-response maximum-likelihood (PRML) is a method for recovering the digital data from the weak analog read-back signal picked up by the head of a magnetic disk drive or tape drive. PRML was introduced to recover data more reliably or at a greater areal-density than earlier simpler schemes such as peak-detection.^[1] These advances are important because most of the digital data in the world is stored using magnetic storage on hard disk or tape drives.

Ampex introduced PRML in a tape drive in 1984. IBM introduced PRML in a disk drive in 1990 and also coined the acronym PRML. Many advances have taken place since the initial introduction. Recent read/write channels operate at much higher data-rates, are fully adaptive, and, in particular, include the ability to handle nonlinear signal distortion and non-stationary, colored, data-dependent noise (PDNP or NPML).

Partial response refers to the fact that part of the response to an individual bit may occur at one sample instant while other parts fall in other sample instants. Maximum-likelihood refers to the detector finding the bit-pattern most likely to have been responsible for the read-back waveform.