Western Digital Technologies, Inc.

Christopher P Karr

John Edward Maroney

Theodore E Deffenbaugh

Richard J Procyk

Todd D Yogi

The present invention provides a bridged, direct-attached storage device that can be secured and work with any host system. In one embodiment, the storage device is configured with a secured user area and an unlocking mechanism for access to the secured user area. The storage device may comprise a translation module having a bridge that presents multiple logical units to a host. In addition, the storage device may comprise a controller having its own encryption engine to encrypt the entire user area of the storage media. In one embodiment, the storage device presents the unlocking mechanism via a second logical device as a read-only device, such as a CD/DVD-ROM, or virtual CD device. The secondary logical device comprises executable code, which allows the user, for example, to enter, change, or remove the password and unlock the user area.

Mechanism to manage access to user data area with bridged direct-attached storage devices

A method of aligning a partition of a data storage device to a boundary of a physical data sector is disclosed. The data storage device comprises a non-volatile memory comprising a plurality of physical data sectors, wherein each physical data sector comprises a plurality of logical data sectors. A partition map is read from the non-volatile memory, wherein the partition map identifies a partition comprising a number of logical data sectors. A number of logical data sectors in each physical data sector is determined. Whether at least part of the partition aligns with a boundary of a physical data sector is determined. When at least part of the partition does not align with a boundary of a physical data sector, at least part of the partition is moved to align at least part of the partition to a boundary of a physical data sector.

Aligning data storage device partition to boundary of physical data sector

A data storage system is disclosed comprising a non-volatile memory and a first interface operable to receive a write command from a host, the write command comprising a host write data block having a host logical block size. A block mapping bridge divides the host write data block into a plurality of transfer data blocks, wherein each transfer data block having a device logical block size smaller than the host logical block size. The transfer data blocks are transmitted through a second interface to control circuitry that accumulates the transfer data blocks into a physical data block having a device physical block size equal to a first integer multiple of the device logical block size, wherein the host logical block size is a second integer multiple of the device physical block size. The physical data block is then written to the non-volatile memory.

Growing community of inventors

Lake Forest, CA, United States of America

Christopher P Karr