Patent ID: 8745277

Claim:
In a non-volatile storage subsystem that comprises a physical controller that processes storage access commands received from a host system, a method of supporting non-standard commands, the method comprising: receiving a write data command and an associated block of write data from the host system, the write data command including an address that specifies at least one target memory location of the non-volatile storage subsystem, wherein the write data command and the associated write data are received by the non-volatile storage subsystem in accordance with a storage interface that includes a command set; determining that the host system from which the write data command was received is a host system with respect to which the storage subsystem is in an authenticated state, the determining comprising: extracting from the block of write data an authentication code, wherein the authentication code was generated based at least in part on a pseudo-random seed value; and validating the extracted authentication code; in response to determining that the host system from which the write data command was received is the host system with respect to which the storage subsystem is in the authenticated state: determining whether the block of write data includes an embedded command at least partly by determining whether the block of write data includes a signature that identifies the block of write data as including the embedded command, wherein the signature comprises a pattern of bits that is separate from the embedded command; and when the block of write data is determined to include an embedded command, extracting the embedded command from the block of write data and executing the embedded command, the embedded command being a command that is not included in the command set of the storage interface; and in response to determining that the host system from which the write data command was received is not the host system with respect to which the storage subsystem is in the authenticated state, executing the write data command.