METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PERFORMING TRANSPARENT MASS STORAGE BACKUPS AND SNAPSHOTS

摘要

The present invention relates to providing security functionality over computer system mass storage data, and more particularly relates to a system and method of transparent data backup on either local or remote storage devices such as SATA storage devices. According to aspects of the invention, the system is transparent to operating system and application software layers. That makes it unnecessary to make any software modifications to the file system, device drivers, operating system, or applications, or installing specialized applications or hardware. In embodiments, the snapshot functionality of the invention is implemented entirely in hardware, and is not designed to slow down performance of the rest of the system.

主权项

1. A computer system, comprising:
a mass storage device; a host processor executing an operating system and applications that create and use data stored on the mass storage device; and a snapshot manager that manages space on the mass storage device for storing one or both of snapshots and backup copies of the data that is created and used by the operating system and applications executed by the host processor in the computer system, wherein the snapshot manager operates independently from and transparently to the host processor, and wherein the host processor cannot independently access the space managed by the snapshot manager, wherein the computer system is a single standalone desktop, notebook or handheld computing device that physically incorporates all of the mass storage device, the host processor and the snapshot together therein.