Systems and methods for improving sequential data rate performance using sorted data zones for butterfly format

A multi-head disk drive is disclosed comprising a plurality of disk surfaces, and a head assembly comprising a plurality of heads, wherein each disk surface comprises a plurality of data zones, and each data zone having a data transfer rate different from the other zones of the respective disk surface. A controller is operable to sequentially write a sequence of data blocks to the plurality of disk surfaces in accordance with a list of head-zone combinations, each head-zone combination corresponding to one of the heads and one of the data zones of the respective disk surface. The head-zone combinations in the list are ordered from highest data transfer rate to lowest data transfer rate, and each disk surface comprises a pivot point defining a direction of writing data in the data zones from one of an outer diameter toward a middle diameter and an inner diameter toward the middle diameter.