A thin-film magnetic recording medium improves the magnetostatic and dynamic magnetic characteristics of the conventional magnetic recording media. In one embodiment, the substrate surface is textured in both the circumferential and radial directions. In further embodiments, a variety of underlayers (13) and crystal orientation control layers (17) are provided in accordance with specific parameters to control the crystal structure of the magnetic layer (14). Finally, an embodiment includes multiple magnetic layers (14, 19) having respectively different residual magnetic flux densities and thicknesses, but similar dot products of residual magnetic flux density and thickness.