The authentication and identification technologies typically used in retail and manufacturing have also found applications in removable data storage. For example, in addition to authenticating parts and preventing counterfeiting in various industries, cartridge identification systems also can protect a drive from damage that inserting a foreign object might cause.

Retail and removable data storage applications differ primarily in their cost constraints: The authentication and identification of removable data storage cartridges must be automated at a very low cost. Penny tag technologies and their associated low-cost automated detection systems for removable data storage cartridges provide innovative identification and authentication methods that have a high overall security-to-cost quotient.