In one embodiment, a computer program product includes a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith. The computer readable storage medium is not a transitory signal per se. The embodied program instructions are readable/executable by a processor to cause the processor to write, by the processor, data to a storage medium of a data storage system using a partial reverse concatenated modulation code. The partial reverse concatenated modulation code includes encoding the data by applying a C2 encoding scheme prior to encoding the data by applying one or more modulation encoding schemes, followed by encoding the data by applying a C1 encoding scheme subsequent to the encoding of the data with the one or more modulation encoding schemes. Other computer program products for writing data to a storage medium of a data storage system using a partial reverse concatenated modulation code are presented according to more embodiments.