An optical storage system includes an optical head configured to split a light beam into a higher power main beam and at least one lower power side beam. The optical storage system also includes a controller configured to alter an optical medium, via modulation of the higher power main beam according to a writing strategy waveform that defines at least n pulses for every n bits of data to be written to the medium, while processing a first signal resulting from the at least one lower power side beam being reflected from the medium and a second signal indicative of the writing strategy waveform to remove noise from the first signal caused by the higher power main beam to generate output indicative of the data directly after writing.