Overland Data delivers 1000th L490E tape drive.

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 16, 1996--Overland Data Inc., a leading supplier of data interchange and storage products, Tuesday announced that it has delivered the 1000th L490E tape drive, a milestone that highlights the widespread market acceptance of the company's innovative technology that produced the first tape drive capable of reading and writing data in 18- and 36-track IBM-compatible formats.

Since its introduction last year, the L490E has been widely lauded for delivering compatibility with 3480, 3490 and 3490E formats in a single, affordable tape drive. The L490E is now installed on network, UNIX and midrange platforms worldwide and features a Fast/Wide SCSI interface for direct connection to AS/400 systems.

According to Eric Eldridge, product marketing manager for Memorex Telex, "The L490E has helped Memorex Telex apply our strengths as an IBM mainframe and midrange tape solutions provider to the UNIX and LAN markets." Eldridge noted that the L490E and its 50-gigabyte L60E cousin have made this possible by offering an affordable solution which emulates several popular SCSI drives for smooth operation in UNIX and LAN environments.

"This achievement demonstrates the type of technical innovation that has been the cornerstone of Overland Data since the company was started," said Scott McClendon, Overland Data president. "Our customers were adamant about needing a single drive solution to the 18- and 36-track compatibility issues created by IBM with the introduction of the 3490E technology. Overland Data accepted the customer challenge to solve their problem and the strong market response has proven that we have succeeded by producing another winning product."

During the development of the L490E, the Overland Data engineering team was not satisfied with simply producing the first drive with 18- and 36-track read and write functionality; it also created other innovations to produce the most advanced Mainframe Class Tape (MCT) drive available. Every L490E drive from Overland Data also includes these breakthrough features:

o Integration of a flush-mount 10-cartridge autoloader, eliminating the need and expense of an external loader. An integrated cleaning cartridge feature is also provided.

o Optimized drive throughput featuring a standard 4 megabyte cache buffer and Fast/Wide SCSI, allowing the L490E to achieve data rate performance of up to 20 MBs per second.

o Highly accurate data recording assured by extensive use of advanced error detection and correction technology. Integrated IBM-compatible cross parity error detection is combined with comprehensive error correction coding to produce a hard error rate of less than 1 in 10-to-the-13th power bytes of data.

o Enhanced drive reliability and recording accuracy due to an innovative new tape path design. Instead of incorporating an "air bearing" tape path that is standard on most half-inch cartridge drives, Overland Data eliminated the need for costly and unreliable blowers by developing an advanced tape path and guiding technology. The results are a drive that produces more stable tape handling, more accurate recording and playback, lower cost and better overall reliability.

Known for high performance and reliability, Overland Data has over 15 years of providing business critical tape storage solutions. Today the company manufactures mainframe class data interchange, backup and archival tape solutions. With both leading edge and standard products designed to protect the customer's investment, Overland Data serves end users, distributors and OEMs worldwide.

For additional information on this announcement and/or other Overland Data products, contact Marty Foltyn at 619/571-5555. Or, check the company's home page on the World Wide Web: http://www.ovrland.com/(tilde)odisales.

CONTACT: Overland Data

Marty Foltyn, 619/571-5555

Internet: [e-mail]

or

JPR Communications

Judy Smith, 818/992-8867

Internet: [e-mail]