American Megatrends Ships the MegaRAID Express 300.

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 13, 1999--

A Low Cost PCI RAID Controller for Cost-Sensitive Single

to Dual Processor Servers and Performance Workstations

Editorial Summary

--   Advanced memory features make the Express 300 the most
     cost-effective, single-channel PCI Ultra2 LVD SCSI RAID
     controller on the market.
--   With unmatched fault tolerance features and multiple management
     utilities to choose from, the Express 300 is the ideal solution
     for OEMs, VARs and System Integrators.
--   The low-cost Express 300 offers high performance RAID features at
     an affordable price.

American Megatrends Inc. (AMI), the leader in supplying RAID technology to the OEM server and storage marketplace, today released the MegaRAID(R) Express 300 PCI Ultra2 LVD SCSI RAID controller for entry-level servers and performance workstations.

With an Intel(R) 64-bit i960(R)RM, 100 MHz I/O processor and 72-bit ECC SDRAM, the Express 300 provides the perfect high-speed RAID controller for OEMs, VARs and System Integrators in need of a high performance controller at an affordable price.

"With the advanced memory features and superior stability that the MegaRAID Express 300 offers, AMI will be able to continue its long history of flexibility and availability in the entry-level server and workstation RAID arena," said Sanjay Sehgal, AMI's Director of RAID Sales.

AMI offers the MegaRAID Express line of high speed, low-cost PCI RAID controllers for cost-sensitive single to dual processor servers and performance workstations. The half-length Express 300 controller features FlexRAID(R), AMI's advanced on-line capacity expansion and RAID level migration utility. And with its state-of-the-art WebBIOS(TM) browser user interface (BUI) utility, the MegaRAID Express 300 offers OS independent management and configuration at the BIOS level.

"WebBIOS sets new standards of usability for RAID array management with its dynamic links and point-and-click configuration," said Siamak Iranpour, AMI's MegaRAID Product Manager. "The Express 300 is the ideal solution for OEMs, VARs or System Integrators in search of a low-cost, high performance PCI Ultra2 LVD SCSI RAID controller with full-featured, easy-to-use RAID management capabilities."

The Express 300's strengths over the competition also include advanced MegaRAID Management features such as Power Console Plus(TM), an advanced application under Windows(R) NT which creates and manages multiple disk arrays and controls and monitors multiple RAID servers. Hot Key "Boot-up" configuration and non-GUI MegaRAID Manager configuration via BIOS also come as standard RAID management utilities. These features, combined with powerful management and configuration utilities, can only be offered together by AMI. As the industry's most reliable manufacturer of RAID technology, AMI designed the Express 300 around the technology that is part of over 500,000 MegaRAID controllers in the field today.

This low-cost, high performance, single-channel Ultra2 LVD SCSI RAID controller comes with standard MSCS clustering support. The Express 300 also includes configurable cache using up to 128 MB configurable cache using a single DIMM slot.

The Express 300 offers unmatched fault tolerance features such as automatic detection of failed drives, support for SAF-TE enclosure management, configuration on disk (COD), SMART support and hot swapping of new drives without bringing the system down. Additional features include automatic and transparent rebuild of hot spare drives and serial communication interface.

The state-of-the-art controller supports up to 15 devices per channel and RAID levels of 0, 1, 3, 5, 10, 30, 50 and JBOD. Multiple operating systems are supported, including Novell(R) NetWare, Windows NT(TM)/2000, SCO(R)UNIX(R), UNIXWare(R), DOS, Linux, Solaris and OS/2 Warp.

Founded in 1985, American Megatrends Inc. (AMI) has dedicated its resources to providing OEMs, resellers and systems integrators with leading edge computer technologies. This privately held company, best known for its Basic Input/Output Systems or BIOS, also supplies its state-of-the-art hardware, software, utilities and RAID controllers to over 55 percent of today's high-tech manufacturers. Headquartered in Atlanta, AMI has locations in the U.S. and throughout the world including London, Madras, Munich, Seoul, Taipei and Tokyo to better serve our customers. For more information on AMI, its products, services or reseller opportunities, call 1-800-U-BUY-AMI or visit our website at www.ami.com.

Key Words: Redundant Arrays of Integrated Disks (RAID), SCSI, Clustering, MSCS, Wolfpack, Workstation, Entry-level Server