Logical expiration of media having embedded non-volatile memory

Details Logical expiration of media having embedded non-volatile memory Logical expiration of media having embedded non-volatile memory

2002-03-01

2004-10-12

Faber, Alan T. (Department: 2651)

Dynamic magnetic information storage or retrieval

General recording or reproducing

Recording-or erasing-prevention

C360S069000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06804075

ABSTRACT:

FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates generally to media having embedded non-volatile memory, and more particularly to logically expiring such media.
COPYRIGHT NOTICE/PERMISSION
A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever. The following notice applies to the software and data as described below and in the drawings hereto: Copyright © 2000-2002, Sony Electronics, Inc., All Rights Reserved.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Magnetic tapes are sequential storage media capable of efficiently and reliably storing large amounts of data. Because of their large storage capacity and relatively low cost, magnetic tapes are commonly used for data backup. A backup server in a network can utilize one or more magnetic tape drives to automatically backup files stored on user computers connected to the network. Magnetic tapes are also used for storage management, multimedia storage and retrieval, real-time data acquisition, and transporting large amounts of data. However, access times to data residing on magnetic tapes are relatively slow compared with other mass storage devices such as hard disks.
One approach to increase the speed of data access on tapes incorporates a non-volatile memory
114
into a magnetic tape cartridge
100
as illustrated in FIG.
1
. The non-volatile memory
14
, often referred to as “memory-in-cassette” (MIC) or auxiliary memory (AM), may be any non-volatile memory device, such as Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory (EPROM), Electrically-Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory (EEPROM), or flash memory. Non-volatile memory
114
may be used to store various types of information about magnetic tape cartridge
100
and magnetic tape
106
. Magnetic tape cartridge
100
also contains an interface
116
to facilitate communication between non-volatile memory
114
and a suitably-configured magnetic tape drive (not shown). The configuration of interface
116
includes terminal pins
118
,
120
,
122
,
124
, and
126
. Other interface configurations may have more or less than five terminal pins. Still other configurations use wireless technology instead of the physical contact provided by the terminal pins.
System log information may be stored in the non-volatile memory
114
, enabling a tape drive to quickly locate and access a data file stored in a particular partition along the magnetic tape. The non-volatile memory
114
also may store other information pertinent to the data on the tape.
Data on media, in particular backup tapes, must be erased or otherwise destroyed after a period of time to comply with logistical and/or legal requirements of an organization. The organization typically maintains media logs to determine when the data on the media should be purged. However, if the date information is entered incorrectly, or not entered at all, the corresponding media may not be erased as required. While the logs may be automated through media expiration schemes created by various application software, such schemes are frequently incompatible among applications. Therefore, one application may be used to circumvent the expiration scheme of another application.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An expiration configuration is encoded into non-volatile memory embedded in media, such as a tape cartridge. The encoded expiration configuration specifies if the media is expired and the action to perform if the media is expired. The action may be performed by an application that reads the encoded expiration configuration or by a media device hosting the media. An expiration data for the media may be stored in the encoded expiration configuration or in an external data record.
The present invention describes systems, apparatus, methods, and machine-readable media of varying scope. In addition to the aspects of the present invention described in this summary, further aspects of the invention will become apparent by reference to the drawings and by reading the detailed description that follows.


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