Patent ID: 8291160

Claim:
A method of emulating a tape library data storage system using one or more hard disk drives, the method comprising: coupling one or more physical tape libraries to an appliance comprising one or more hard disk drives with a communication link; electronically querying, over said communication link, said one or more physical tape libraries to acquire a configuration of the one or more physical tape libraries; and in response to the electronically querying, allocating data storage space on the one or more hard disk drives to virtual devices of one or more virtual tape libraries, wherein the one or more virtual tape libraries comprise virtual devices identical to physical devices in the acquired configuration of the one or more physical tape libraries in the tape storage system; storing data in the storage space allocated to the virtual devices according to a first user defined periodic schedule; replicating the data stored on the virtual devices onto the one or more physical tape libraries according to a second user defined periodic schedule, wherein the second user defined periodic schedule is different from the first user defined periodic schedule; detecting a request to export one of one or more physical tapes from one of the one or more physical tape libraries; and replicating data from a virtual device corresponding to the physical tape requested to be exported to the physical tape requested to be exported before the physical tape is exported, so as to synchronize the physical tape with the virtual device.