Patent ID: 8667191

Claim:
A management hub for identifying and controlling activation of one or more attached memory devices, comprising: an interface for interfacing and communicating with one or more external host devices; a master hub controller coupled to the interface; a plurality of ports coupled to the master hub controller for receiving the one or more attached memory devices; a microcontroller coupled to the master hub controller; a slave hub controller coupled to the microcontroller and the plurality of ports; and an on-board flash memory device coupled to the microcontroller, the on-board flash memory device having a plurality of resident partitions including a hidden drive information partition and a hidden drive organizer partition for managing and identifying information in the one or more attached memory devices coupled to the plurality of ports, and control logic operative to activate a drive organizer management console (DOMC) application within the hidden drive organizer partition for actively determining when the one or more attached memory devices are attached to a port of the plurality of ports and preventing an operating system from the one or more external host devices from accessing the one or more attached memory devices, wherein when the management hub is first connected to a host system the DOMC is active and isolates each of the one or more attached memory devices and provides indication of each as being in an activation state to the host system in accordance with its status.