Patent ID: 7657665

Claim:
Apparatus comprising: a local removable-media drive; a plurality of first device interfaces conforming to a first protocol; a processor which couples said plurality of first device interfaces to said drive; and; a plurality of I/O controllers each maintaining an uninterrupted first protocol connection with one of said first device interfaces; wherein the processor emulates a mass storage device conforming to a second protocol and appearing at each of said first device interfaces, and wherein said plurality of I/O controllers send first protocol commands encapsulating second protocol commands to said first device interfaces, the processor being further effective to: derive the encapsulated second protocol commands from the first protocol commands; translate the derived second protocol commands to a third protocol which corresponds to the protocol of said drive; serialize and redirect translated commands to said drive; and in response to receiving a specific command originating from a specific one of said I/O controllers and thereafter translating the specific command into a specific translated command: pass the specific translated command to said drive and return the result of the specific translated command through the specific one of said I/O controllers in response to a predetermined condition; and suppress the specific translated command to said drive and return an indication through the specific one of said I/O controllers that no media is present irrespective of whether media is present in said drive in response to a lack of the predetermined condition.