Patent ID: 8223600

Claim:
A tape drive for operation on a network, the tape drive comprising: file transfer logic encoded on a non-transitory medium operative, when executed, to cause a processor to transfer file data to and from the network according to a network file transfer protocol; media access logic encoded on a non-transitory medium operative, when executed, to cause a processor to read and write data to a tape cartridge associated with the tape drive according to a storage device communication protocol, wherein the tape cartridge comprises magnetic tape with a plurality of linear tracks; and media management logic encoded on a non-transitory medium operative, when executed, to cause the processor to translate file-based commands received by the file transfer logic from the network according to the file transfer protocol into sequential-access device commands according to the storage device communication protocol, the media management logic is operative to cause the processor to, responsive to network file transfer protocol commands to store a file, write Table of Contents (TOC) data to a TOC region of the tape cartridge, the TOC data comprising data that indexes one or more files to physical data locations of the tape cartridge, and write file data corresponding to the one or more files to a payload region of the tape cartridge; the media management logic is operable to cause the processor to store at least a portion of file metadata in a first region of the magnetic tape, and, if the file metadata is larger than the first region, store the remainder of the metadata in a second region of the magnetic tape, in which case the TOC data maintains a mapping of the metadata to the first region and the second region, wherein the second region is after an end of existing data already stored on the magnetic tape, and wherein the at least one file is formatted according to the MXF format.