Abstract: First and second ports of a storage switch are respectively coupled to a data source and a first port of a first data sink having a second port coupled to a first port coupled to a first port of a second data sink. The first data sink has a first component for determining whether a data packet received at the first port of the first and second data sink is addressed to the first data sink and a second component for forwarding the data packet from the second port of the first data sink to the first port of the second data sink if the data packet is not addressed to the first data sink.

Abstract: A tape drive apparatus comprising: a data transfer apparatus for transferring bootable data between a loaded tape media and the tape drive apparatus, an emulation apparatus for emulating an optical storage device, a first port for communicating with the tape drive apparatus in a tape drive mode, a second port for communicating with the tape drive apparatus in an optical storage device mode, the second port enabling an external device to access the emulation apparatus.

Abstract: A method of sequentially transferring boot-image data comprising: causing first boot-image data to be transferred to a tape medium starting at a first offset, causing second boot-image data to be transferred to the tape medium starting at a second offset, causing data relating to the first and second offsets to be transferred to a non-volatile memory.

Abstract: A tape drive method and apparatus is disclosed wherein payload data is sent from a host computer device to a tape drive data storage device in data block sizes which are specified by the host computer, for example in the case of a tape drive presenting a CD-ROM image, in 2 kbyte blocks, whereas the tape drive writes to tape media in an optimal block size required to keep the tape media streaming across the tape heads, for example 8 kbyte blocks. Conversion between block size is achieved by buffering incoming payload data in a buffer, and by reading or writing to the tape media in the optimum block size.

Abstract: A tape drive method and apparatus is disclosed wherein payload data is sent from a host computer device to a tape drive data storage device in data block sizes which are specified by the host computer, for example in the case of a tape drive presenting a CD-ROM image, in 2 kbyte blocks, whereas the tape drive writes to tape media in an optimal block size required to keep the tape media streaming across the tape heads, for example 8 kbyte blocks. Conversion between block size is achieved by buffering incoming payload data in a buffer, and by reading or writing to the tape media in the optimum block size.