Robust, computationally-efficient and secure systems, devices and automated processes are described for storing content on a disk drive or other storage device that is supplied to a media encoder or other host device. The user-supplied drive may be used, for example, to store content in a digital video recorder (DVR) or the like. The host device creates two separate digital identifiers that separately identify the host device and the user, respectively, so that subsequent pairing can be performed based upon either identifier. The two identifiers are stored on the storage device and rendered upon subsequent pairing for validation by the host device.