Hardware-based methods and apparatus are provided for inter-track interference mitigation in magnetic recording systems using averaged values. Inter-track interference (ITI) is mitigated in a magnetic recording system by obtaining ITI cancellation data; and providing the ITI cancellation data for ITI mitigation, wherein the ITI mitigation is performed in combination with an averaging procedure for one or more of ITI mitigation of averaged data and averaging of ITI mitigated data. The sector is optionally decoded using the ITI mitigated samples. Samples for one or more side track sectors can also be averaged. The averaged side track samples can be provided as ITI cancellation data for ITI mitigation. The averaging procedure optionally applies a scaling factor to each read value.