Patent ID: 8539147

Claim:
A storage control apparatus for controlling operation of a hierarchical storage system which uses portable storage media in a library device as secondary storage, the storage control apparatus comprising: a first duplication control unit that causes a logical volume in a primary storage medium to be copied to a secondary storage medium, the primary storage medium serving as primary storage in the hierarchical storage system, the secondary storage medium being one of the portable storage media in the library device and serving as the secondary storage; a second duplication control unit that causes the logical volume to be also copied from the primary storage medium to an export storage medium, in connection with the copying of the logical volume from the primary storage medium to the secondary storage medium by the first duplication control unit, when export attributes indicate that the logical volume copied by the first duplication control unit is supposed to be exported, the export storage medium being one of the portable storage media in the library device which is assigned for export operation; and a medium ejection control unit that causes the library device to eject the export storage medium, in response to an ejection request therefor.