Importance

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Abstract

A storage device or drive such as a disk or tape drive including a nonvolatile erasable semiconductor memory which stores parameters which control the operation of the storage device. Through a user interface on a host computer, the user is capable of changing the parameters which are used to control the storage device, allowing the user to configure the operation of the storage device in any manner desired. The parameters which are changeable within the storage device relate to responses to the detection of errors within the storage device, data encryption algorithms, the stopping of a disk from spinning, the caching of the storage device, and data compression algorithms. The storage drive also has the capability to perform a stand-alone formatting operation. After formatting a storage medium with the assistance of the host computer, the formatted medium is read by the drive and stored in the nonvolatile memory of the storage drive. The next time a medium needs to be formatted, the formatting information is read from the memory of the storage drive to perform the formatting, thus freeing the host computer to perform other tasks.

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First Claim