US Patent 7581036 Offline caching of control transactions for storage devices

A system and method using hardware and software components enable a storage module to collect and maintain control transaction data (e.g., directives/events) when a storage device of the module is offline or in a low power configuration. The storage module contains a nonvolatile memory cache and a module controller, and also may include a separate power source, an output display and input mechanism so that when offline, the user may display and navigate among catalog information corresponding to stored content to set up deferred events related to the content. When reconnected to a general-computing host system, the host system obtains the control transaction data from the storage module, and processes the data into file-system related events and other events to perform actions to the storage device and/or to other resources coupled to the host computer system. The host system may also cache transaction control data on the storage module's cache.