Patent ID: 7765373

Claim:
A system for restricting access to storage resources, the system comprising: a storage subsystem having stored therein: a unique identifier of the storage subsystem; a unique identifier of a particular host system with which the storage subsystem is configured to operate; and a device-specific file in a non-protected storage area of the storage subsystem, the file encrypted through an encryption method that is based at least in part on one or more of the unique identifiers to inhibit decryption of the file when it is copied to another storage subsystem; wherein the storage subsystem is connectable to the host system, and includes a non-volatile, solid state memory that is capable of being accessed by the host system; and said host system, wherein the host system has stored therein information for verifying an identity of the storage subsystem; wherein the storage subsystem and the host system are configured to collectively use said unique identifiers and said information to inhibit the host system from being used with other storage subsystems, and to inhibit the storage subsystem from being used with other host systems, such that a one-to-one pairing exists between the storage subsystem and the host system, wherein the storage subsystem is responsive to standard storage access commands from the host system, and wherein said unique identifiers are stored on the storage subsystem in a protected storage area that is not accessible via said standard storage access commands but are retrievable via ATA vendor-specific commands issued by a device driver executed on the host system, and said device driver is configured to use at least one of the unique identifiers to decrypt the device-specific file.