System and method for securing drive access to data storage media based on medium identifiers

• US 7,472,245 B2
• Filed: 12/30/2005
• Issued: 12/30/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 12/28/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Valtrus Innovations Limited (f/k/a Dolya Holdco 9 Limited) (Key Patent Innovations Limited)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Gold, Stephen, Ballard, Curtis C., Crighton, Ian Peter, Camble, Peter Thomas, Roman, Chuck
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen; Hiep T
• Application Number:
  US11/323,545
• Publication Number:
  US 20060168652A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,096 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 711/163
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 20/00086 Circuits for prevention of unauthorised reproduction or copying, e.g. piracy indicating unauthorised use of record carriers in general G11B23/28; scrambling for television signal recording H04N5/913; network architectures or network protocols for network security H04L63/00; cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for secret or secure communication H04L9/00
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 2220/40 Combinations of multiple record carriers
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 2220/90 Tape-like record carriers
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/002 Programmed access in sequence to a plurality of record carriers or indexed parts, e.g. tracks, thereof, e.g. for editing; transfer of record carriers from magazine G11B15/68, G11B17/10; G11B17/22
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 5/00813 magnetic tapes

Abstract

A method for securing access to a data medium comprises listing at least one unique identifier of media that a data transfer element is allowed to access in memory storage of the data transfer element, accessing only media having at least one of the listed unique identifiers in media cartridge memory with the data transfer element, and writing a unique identifier associated with the data transfer element to the cartridge memory of the selected medium with the data transfer element in response to no library assigned unique identifier being present in the cartridge memory of the selected medium.

Claims

1. A data library configured to isolate data for different users, comprising:

a plurality of physical partitions in a library;

at least one drive assigned only to each of the plurality of physical partitions; and

a reader on the at least one drive, the reader enabling the drive to read a unique identifier written to a medium cartridge memory (CM) of a medium disposed in the drive and only accept the medium if the unique identifier is assigned to the drive to restrict access to data such that different users cannot access each other'"'"'s data even though data for the different users is maintained in the same physical library.

2. A data library of claim 1 wherein a new medium without a unique identifier present in the CM is accepted by the drive and the unique identifier associated with a partition of the drive is written to the CM to secure the new medium.

3. The data library of claim 1 wherein the unique identifier identifies a specific drive.

4. The data library of claim 1 wherein the unique identifier identifies a set of drives in a specific partition.

5. The data library of claim 1 wherein the unique identifier is relatively unique.

6. The data library of claim 5 wherein the relatively unique identifier is unique to a degree sufficient to differentiate media within a physical entity.

7. The data library of claim 5 wherein the relatively unique identifier provides an indication as to physical library, partition, and/or drive to which a medium belonged.

8. The data library of claim 1 wherein the unique identifier is universally unique.

9. The data library of claim 1 wherein no special initialization or inventory sequence is required to setup security beyond configuring a drive to only accept media which have the unique identifier in the CM.

10. A data library configured to isolate data for different hosts, comprising:

a plurality of logical partitions in a library;

at least one drive assigned only to each of the plurality of logical partitions, wherein the at least one drive is enabled to read and write a unique identifier on a medium cartridge memory (CM) of a medium disposed in the drive and only accept the medium if the unique identifier corresponds to the drive to restrict access to data such that different hosts cannot access each other'"'"'s data even though data for the different hosts is maintained in the same physical library.

11. The data library of claim 10 wherein each of the drives in the library are designated for use by a different host system that has free access to library robotics controllers.

12. The data library of claim 10 wherein a new medium without a unique identifier present in the CM is accepted by the drive and the unique identifier associated with a partition of the drive is written to the CM to secure the new medium.

13. The data library of claim 10 wherein the unique identifier identifies a specific drive.

14. The data library of claim 10 wherein the unique identifier identifies a set of drives in a specific partition.

15. The data library of claim 10 wherein the unique identifier is relatively unique.

16. The data library of claim 15 wherein the relatively unique identifier is unique to a degree sufficient to differentiate media within a physical entity.

17. The data library of claim 15 wherein the relatively unique identifier provides an indication as to physical library, partition, and/or drive to which a medium belonged.

18. The data library of claim 10 wherein the unique identifier is universally unique.

19. The data library of claim 10 wherein no special initialization or inventory sequence is required to setup security beyond configuring a drive to only accept media which have the unique identifier in the CM.