A predictive failure control circuit and associated method are provided in a data storing and retrieving apparatus. The circuit is configured to schedule a data integrity operation on data associated with a subportion of a data storage space, in relation to a comparison of an accumulated plurality of executed host access commands associated with the subportion. The subportion can comprise a sector or a single track or a band of tracks. A table preferably stores accumulated number of host access commands for each of a plurality of subportions of the data storage space. The data integrity operation can comprise reading the data on to detect degradation and restoring the recovered data to the same or to new, different tracks. The data subportions can also be reallocated to a new location.