Patent ID: 7685375

Claim:
A portable storage system for connecting with a host information processing system, the portable storage system comprising: a storage device for storing information, said information comprising files and directories wherein each file and directory has a flag associated with it that indicates whether it is shared, and wherein the storage device comprises: a visible partition comprising those files and directories that are visible to a user of the host information processing system when the storage device is connected therewith; a non-visible partition comprising those files and directories that are not visible to the user of the host information processing system when the storage device is connected therewith, such that access to the files and directories in the non-visible partition is blocked; wherein the host information processing system, when connected with the storage device, perceives a file system whose size equals a sum of an amount of empty storage space and a combined size of the files and directories marked as shared on the portable storage system; a processor; a switch operatively coupled with the storage device and configured to be set in a plurality of modes, wherein the plurality of modes comprise: an owner mode wherein all of the files and directories are in the visible partition, wherein the owner mode, when selected, shows a shared flag indicating that the files marked with the flag are shared between the storage system and the host system and further comprising an apparatus for an owner of the portable storage system to modify a shared flag and to add files to the visible partition by checking the shared flags; a give mode wherein any file and directory created in said give mode is automatically marked as shared and only the files and directories marked as shared are in the visible partition; and a get mode wherein no files or directories are in the visible partition and the storage device shows only free space in the storage device to the user of the host information processing system when the storage device is connected therewith, and wherein in the get mode a size of the storage device presented to the user of the host information processing system equals an amount of the free space on the storage device; a write-protect switch wherein if the write-protect switch is set along with the switch in the give mode the files in the visible partition are write- protected; a dial that allows the user to specify a date range for filtering the list of files shown in the give position to show only those files marked as shared within the specified date range; and a display that shows the selected date range and a state of the device.