COPAN Systems Unveils New MAID-Based Archive Solution; The Revolution 220A Delivers Unprecedented Data Archive Retrievability and Digital Asset Protection in an Affordable, MAID-Based Archive Solution.

LAS VEGAS -- COPAN Systems, a leading provider of complete storage solutions that unlock the value of long-term data, announced today at the Storage Decisions show in Las Vegas, the further expansion of its portfolio of enterprise storage solutions with the Revolution 220A and MILLENNIA ARCHIVE(TM) software for archive applications.

The Revolution 220A is the latest product in the company's Revolution 200 series, joining the recently announced Revolution 220T and Revolution 220TX. All products in the series are based on the company's proven enhanced MAID (Massive Array of Idle Disks) platform that combines the reliability and responsiveness of disk with the scale and affordability of tape. All solutions provide unique benefits through COPAN Systems' patent-pending three-tier system architecture, POWER MANAGED RAID(TM) software, and DISK AEROBICS(TM) software.

Powered by COPAN Systems' innovative MILLENNIA ARCHIVE software, the Revolution 220A allows enterprise customers to retain all their digital assets with simple and immediate store and retrieve capabilities at the file level for their continuously growing data archives. Companies can now leverage the full value of their fixed content and reference data with a solution that is secure, reliable, and agile.

"At COPAN Systems, we believe the Revolution 220A is a storage solution that will truly help companies unlock the value of their long-term data," said COPAN Systems CEO and President, Dave Davenport. "Together with MILLENNIA ARCHIVE software, the 220A is a strong archiving solution that will give our enterprise customers a superior way to more effectively manage their rapidly growing archive needs. We're excited by the positive responses we've received. A number of large organizations already see the unique benefits of the 220A, and will be evaluating it in their data centers."

One such organization, National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), makes fundamental contributions to cryospheric science by conducting research, managing data and information resources, and disseminating scientific information. NSIDC -- familiar with MAID technology -- has been using COPAN's Revolution 200T to migrate its data from tape, but recently learned about the archive capabilities of the new Revolution 220A. "We were intrigued by the 220A's features, including having the archive available as a file system to our production and distribution servers, eliminating the added cost of tape software and management, maintaining multiple file versions, storing digital signatures for each file version, and setting data retention periods," said Vince Troisi, NSIDC Technical Services Manager. "We are now evaluating the 220A in our data center, and expect positive results at the end of the evaluation period."

A second organization is Ticketmaster, the world's leading ticketing company that provides ticket sales and distribution through one of the largest e-commerce sites on the Internet. "Ticketmaster needs to keep transactional history around for many years," said Sean Lynch, Sr. Director Systems Engineering, Ticketmaster. "We're looking at COPAN Systems' Revolution 220A archive solution as a way to make all our data accessible to applications, instead of using primary storage or off-line media. We felt that COPAN's value proposition was compelling enough to plan to install the 220A in our data centers, and will be evaluating its performance as to how well it can meet our archive needs."

About the Revolution 220A

The Revolution 220A provides enterprise customers with unique benefits for storing archive data, including the ability to:

--Retain and repurpose all digital assets with immediate store and retrieve capabilities at the file level

--Leverage the full value of fixed content and reference data

--Easily and quickly find archived information, and be assured of its integrity and accuracy

--Automate data movement to address key business needs using MILLENNIA ARCHIVE(TM) software

--Provide data immutability so that data cannot be altered -- whether accidentally or intentionally

--Eliminate the need to retain backup tapes as a pseudo archive for multiple years

--Better manage continuously growing archive data

The Revolution 220A is particularly well suited to industries such as manufacturing, research and development, engineering and architectural design, and media and entertainment, that would realize substantial cost savings and productivity benefits from repurposing their digital assets.

Arun Taneja, founder and consulting analyst at the Taneja Group, advises that companies should keep backup/recovery and archive applications in appropriate different systems. "Don't mix up backup/restore with archiving. Archive platforms should provide the ability to index data and search for it when it's needed," said Taneja. "COPAN's newest solution -- the Revolution 220A -- does just that, at an extremely competitive price. Companies no longer have to back up static data that should be archived."

Availability

The Revolution 220A is currently shipping to a number of enterprise level companies who are testing and evaluating, and will be generally available in Q1 2006.

About COPAN Systems

COPAN Systems is a leading provider of complete storage solutions, based on its enhanced MAID technology, that unlock the value of long-term data. The company is led by storage industry veterans from Hitachi Data Systems, Sun/StorageTek, Dell, HP/Compaq, EMC, and others, and is privately held with investments by Austin Ventures, Globespan Capital, Pequot Ventures, and Pinnacle Ventures. COPAN Systems' storage solutions have been shipping since March 2004, with customers spanning the healthcare, financial, government, media, and service provider industries. Solution implementations include backup/recovery, archive and disaster recovery. More information is available at http://www.COPANsys.com.