Patent ID: 8423794

Claim:
A method of transferring protected data from a source flash storage drive to a target flash storage drive, the method comprising the source flash storage drive: receiving a request to transfer contents of the source flash storage drive to the target flash storage drive, the source flash storage drive having a source hardware key, wherein the source hardware key uniquely identifies the source storage drive, the source hardware key being non-transferable and maintained in a controller of the source flash storage drive, and wherein the contents comprise operating firmware of the source flash storage drive bound to the source flash storage drive by the source hardware key; authenticating the target flash storage drive; and if the target flash storage drive is authenticated: unbinding the operating firmware from the source flash storage drive by decrypting the operating firmware of the source flash storage drive with the source hardware key; establishing a secure session between the source and target flash storage drives and encrypting the decrypted operating firmware with a session key generated based on the authenticating of the target flash drive; transferring the operating firmware encrypted with the session key during the secure session from the source flash storage drive to the target flash storage drive so that the target flash storage drive can then bind the transferred operating firmware to itself with a target hardware key which uniquely identifies the target flash storage drive; and deleting the operating firmware from the source flash storage drive upon receiving verification that the operating firmware has been successfully transferred from the source flash storage drive to the target flash storage drive.