Certance Broadens Data Protection Family with LTO Ultrium 3 `Performance' and LTO Ultrium 2 Half-Height `Value' Tape Solutions

Business Wire, August 16, 2004

COSTA MESA, Calif. -- Certance LTO-3 Delivers 800 GB Capacity, 490 GB/hr Performance; LTO-2 Half-Height Products Enable SMBs Access to LTO Ultrium Open Format Benefits

Certance LLC (http://www.certance.com/), a world leader in innovative, cost-effective data protection solutions for companies of all sizes, announced today the introduction of its CL 800 LTO Ultrium 3 series and CL 400H LTO Ultrium 2 Half Height series of data protection solutions. With the introduction of these new solutions, Certance expands its LTO Ultrium product offering in two directions -- CL 800 for the performance, capacity and reliability requirements of the enterprise and large businesses, and CL 400H for the affordability and reliability requirements of small and medium businesses. LTO Ultrium technology is the open-format tape specification developed by Certance, HP and IBM. LTO Ultrium tape drive shipments held a greater than 2:1 ship-share lead over the SDLT format in 2003 according to a Gartner Dataquest report: Tape Drive Market Shares, 2003 (March 24, 2004).

For the enterprise and large businesses, the Certance CL 800 will provide up to 800 Gbytes of data protection per cartridge with backup speeds of up to 490 Gbytes per hour. The Certance CL 400H series will address affordability and reliability with capacities of up to 400 Gbytes and data transfer rates of up to 144 Gbytes per hour. Certance CL 800 and CL 400H solutions will be available this Fall.

"Our introduction of the CL 800 LTO Ultrium 3 series provides our customers with a time-to-market advantage in the Super Tape segment where LTO Ultrium technology is the market leader, while reaffirming our commitment to cost-effective data protection for companies of all sizes," stated Ryan Malone, senior product marketing manager for LTO Ultrium solutions at Certance. "Our introduction of CL 400H LTO-2 half-height solutions creates a new 'Value Super Tape' category, delivering all the benefits of open-format LTO-2 technology, and eliminating proprietary technologies like AIT, VX and VS technologies as their only choice."

"With growing regulatory and audit control requirements, new data protection solutions need to deliver on the capacity and performance requirements of the enterprise if they intend to drive growth in the mid-range market segment," stated Fara Yale, Research Vice President at Gartner. "Manufacturing leadership in this segment will come from those who can produce products with enterprise class capacity, performance and reliability and yet be able to do it at a price point that SMBs can afford."

Certance CL 800 LTO Ultrium 3 Solutions -- Capacity and Performance

Certance CL 800 LTO Ultrium 3 tape drives deliver both capacity and performance with up to 800 GB* per cartridge and 490 GB/hr*, respectively. Targeted at large businesses and the enterprise with pricing starting at $5,899, the CL 800 provides 'best in class' reliability and performance with Certance-exclusive reliability features, including MediaShield, SmartVerify, Dynamic Powerdown and 13-Speed Transfer. CL 800 solutions will be available in internal, desktop and 2U rackmount configurations and all include BakBone NetVault WorkGroup backup software. Certance plans to support Write Once, Read Many (WORM) functionality in its LTO-3 solutions for affordable, unalterable data storage related to current regulatory compliance requirements. Backward-compatible with LTO Ultrium 1 and 2 media, and interchangeable with tape drives from all manufacturers, the CL 800 provides complete investment security and delivers the quality and cost benefits only available through an open format. To learn more about the Certance CL 800, visit our website http://www.certance.com/news/lto3.> Certance CL 400H Solutions -- Affordability, Open Format Benefits

The Certance CL 400H delivers the capacity and reliability of LTO-2 in a compact 5.25-inch half-height form factor. The introduction of the CL 400H provides a new entry-level to those small-to-medium business users requiring both affordability and capacity in an open-format LTO technology. With pricing starting at $1,999, the Certance CL 400H will come with capacities of up to 400 Gbytes and data transfer of up to 144 Gbytes per hour. CL 400H solutions will be available as an internal, desktop or 1U rackmount solution. As with all Certance LTO Ultrium products, the CL 400H will come with Certance-exclusive reliability features including MediaShield, SmartVerify, Dynamic Powerdown and 13-Speed Transfer and include BakBone NetVault WorkGroup backup software. To learn more about CL 400H, visit our website at http://www.certance.com/news/lto2hh.> About Certance

Certance is a worldwide market leader providing the broadest range of tape backup products and data protection solutions with a commitment to innovative, cost-effective data protection for companies of all sizes. Headquartered in Costa Mesa, Calif., Certance produces a full array of data protection solutions including LTO Ultrium, DDS/DAT, Travan tape technologies and DPA-disk based technologies including CP 3100 data protection solutions. With more than 12 million tape devices installed worldwide, the Company designs, manufactures and markets a wide range of solutions to meet the backup, restore and archive needs of virtually every platform from notebooks and PCs to enterprise servers. Certance can be found around the globe and at http://www.certance.com/.>