Patent ID: 7660943

Claim:
A method, comprising: carrying drive commands from a host system, through a first, physical, host-drive interface port of a data storage drive, through a host-drive interface path of said data storage drive and to a drive controller of said data storage drive; responsive to said drive commands from a host system, selectively reading data from and writing data to a media item removably received in said data storage drive, carrying library commands from a host system, through a second, physical, host-library interface port of said data storage drive, through a host-library interface path of said data storage drive and to a controller of said data storage drive wherein said second, host-library interface port is physically separate from said first, host-drive interface port; relaying said library commands from a controller of said data storage drive to a third, physical, library communication port of said storage drive, said third, library communication port of said storage drive being coupled to an automated data storage library and being physically separate from said first, host-drive interface port and said second, host-library interface port of said storage drive; wherein the drive commands from a host system are conducted primarily through the first, physical, host-drive interface port and the host-drive interface path to the drive controller of said data storage drive, and the library commands from a host system are conducted primarily through the second, physical, host-library interface port and the host-library interface path to the third, physical library communication port of the data storage drive.