Disk drive with integrated tape drive

Abstract

A data backup apparatus for a computer data system includes a unit housing in a standard form factor, within which is provided one or more disk drives and a removable media drive as well as an interface. In one embodiment, the removal media is magnetic tape cartridges that are selectively insertable and removable to and from a tape drive as the removable media drive. In embodiments with a single hard drive, the drive is divided into two partitions, a first partition with active data interchange with the computer data system and a second partition for data duplication, or mirroring. Data backup operations are performed by reading the duplicate or mirrored data from the second partition. Multiple disk systems are described, as well as systems utilizing optical removable media and solid state or memory cartridge removable media. A restore function is provided which operates independently of the host computer to which the device is connected to restore backed-up data regardless of the operational condition of the host computer.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.