A perpendicular magnetic recording system, comprises: a perpendicular magnetic recording medium including a non-magnetic substrate having a surface and a stacked plurality of thin film layers forming a layer stack overlying the substrate surface and including a magnetically soft underlayer (SUL) beneath at least one perpendicular magnetic recording layer, wherein the SUL has a saturation magnetization (M.sub.s)--thickness (t) product (M.sub.st) less than about 4 memu/cm.sup.2, and a ring-type magnetic transducer head is positioned in spaced adjacency to an upper surface of the layer stack.