Lenovo Assigned Two Patents

Assuring secure disposal of HDD unit

Lenovo, Singapore, has been assigned a patent (8,381,304) developed by four co-inventors for an "apparatus and method for assuring secure disposal of a HDD unit."

The co-inventors are Daryl Cromer, Cary, NC, Howard Jeffrey Locker, Cary, NC, Randall S. Springfield, Chapel Hill, NC, and Rod D. Waltermann, Rougemont, NC.

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "A HDD unit includes a microprocessor programmed to erase data stored within the drive unit if it is determined that a process potentially leading to a misuse of the data stored within the drive unit, and if secure disposal configuration data stored in nonvolatile storage within the drive indicates that the data is to be erased. Such a process includes initializing the drive unit for operation without providing a password matching a password stored in the drive unit, initializing the drive unit in a system not having CMOS configuration data matching the drive unit, and determining that a failure rate within the drive unit exceeds a threshold level."

The patent application was filed on July 27, 2006 (11/493,952).

Cache mapping for SSDs

Lenovo, Singapore, has been assigned a patent (8,407,398) developed by Jeffrey R. Hobbet, Holly Springs, NC, Donald R. Frame, Apex, NC, and David Timothy Zimmerman, Raleigh, NC, for "cache mapping for solid state drives."

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "An approach is provided that loads software files, such as an OS, on a hybrid storage device. The hybrid storage device is a device that includes a nonvolatile storage device and a nonvolatile memory cache. The nonvolatile memory cache has less storage capacity than the nonvolatile storage device. The nonvolatile memory cache is preset (pinned) to data corresponding to an initial set of address ranges of the nonvolatile storage device, such as all or part of the OS that was loaded onto the nonvolatile storage device. A system usage metric is initialized along with a threshold value. The nonvolatile memory cache remains pinned to the initial set of address ranges until the system usage metric reaches the threshold value. When the system usage metric reaches the threshold value, then a caching algorithm is used to determine what data should be cached to the nonvolatile memory cache."

The patent application was filed on Oct. 1, 2008 (12/243,781).