TAC Systems Configures Its Fixed-Information NAS Products For Portability, Terabyte Capacity, and Space Savings.

Business/Technology Editors

HUNTSVILLE, Ala.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 7, 2000

PortableTurbo, TeraTurbo, and SlimRackTurbo Add New Level of

Flexibility and Scalability to LANRedi Turbo Family

TAC Systems, a division of @fax, Inc., and a technology leader in fixed-information network attached storage (NAS), today unveiled three attractive configurations for its LANRedi Turbo(TM) fixed-information NAS, a family of hard disk based archive and CD/DVD mirroring solutions. The new PortableTurbo(TM), TeraTurbo(TM), and SlimRackTurbo(TM) add a new level of physical portability, Terabyte scaling, and spatial convenience to the family's standard tower and rack configurations. LANRedi Turbo now offers one of the industry's most flexible and scalable NAS solutions for fast access to fixed and near-fixed information to meet the particular needs of imaging, CAD and GIS modeling, online catalog, documentation, and IT professionals.

PortableTurbo relieves system and network administrators from having to tote a suitcase full of CDs and load them individually during branch office system updates. TeraTurbo offers large capacity and scalability for applications that require sharing of Terabytes of archived data or thousands of CDs online. SlimRackTurbo offers one of the fastest racks in 1U height when space is at a premium.

"We've broadened our LANRedi Turbo family to address the growing demand for fixed-information NAS from companies in diverse industries," said Kanti Purohit, president of TAC Systems. "These attractive new configurations offer our customers more flexibility, scalability and choice to meet their application-specific needs."

Fixed-information includes historical and reference information such as scanned images, photographs, music, digitized movies, encyclopedia, and digitized books on various media including CDs, DVDs, and hard disks. Near-fixed information changes infrequently from once a day to once a year or longer. Examples include CAD and GIS models, mapping data, illustrated parts catalogs, service manuals, technical documentation, patient and customer records, graphic arts including fonts library, clipart, and logos.

"Forget about carrying a briefcase full of CDs or DVDs and spending valuable time loading them one by one at branch offices to update system or network configurations," explained Jim Farmer, manager of customer service at TAC Systems. "Just mirror them once onto the LANRedi PortableTurbo and leave your valuable CDs and DVDs in a safe and secure place. When you arrive at a branch office, simply connect the PortableTurbo directly to a LAN and update configurations at hard disk drive speeds."

PortableTurbo also offers convenience for demonstrations and presentations of video and audio at customer sites. It eliminates concerns over losing valuable CDs or DVDs. Equipped with a wheeled case, PortableTurbo configuration is available for all LANRedi Turbo products.

TeraTurbo is the configuration of choice when customers need online sharing of thousands of CDs or Terabytes of secure and read-only storage for Imaging, Mapping, CAD, or GIS information. TeraTurbo configurations offer highly scalable and cost-effective solutions. Built as ArchiveTurbo(TM), customers can start with 500 Gigabytes of online storage. As their needs grow, they can add more racks to increase storage capacity up to 1.5 Terabytes. TeraTurbo configurations are also available for CD/DVDTurbo(TM) for sharing up to 3,000 mirrored CDs or up to 300 mirrored DVDs over the network. The TeraTurbo configuration consists of an upright cabinet with up to nine standard racks.

SlimRackTurbo is a fast CD/DVD mirroring rack in a space saving 1U configuration. It allows users to share up to 100 CD-ROM or 10 DVD-ROM titles over the network. Available as ArchiveTurbo, it stores up to 50 Gigabytes of fixed or near-fixed information.

Availability and Pricing

All application-specific LANRedi Turbo configurations are immediately available for volume shipments. PortableTurbo with 50 Gigabytes starts at $5,474.00. TeraTurbo in CDTurbo configurations is priced from $33,064.00 for 900 CD titles to $87,526.00 for 3,000 CD titles. SlimRackTurbo for 100 CD titles is priced at $5,083.00.

About TAC Systems

TAC Systems, a division of @fax, Inc., is a technology leader in fixed-information Network Attached Storage (NAS). Nearly 80% of online information is fixed or near-fixed across a broad range of industries. The company's LANRedi Turbo(TM) family of hard disk based archive and CD/DVD mirroring solutions enable users to share fixed-information online at near-line prices. By offloading fixed-information onto LANRedi Turbo products, companies can free up their general-purpose servers to perform mission-critical tasks faster as well as speed up file sharing for everyone on the network. They can be up and running in less than 15 minutes and are easy to manage using any web browser from anywhere on the network. For more information, send e-mail to [e-mail], visit www.lanredi.com or call 256-721-1976.

LANRedi, LANRedi Turbo, CD/DVDTurbo, ArchiveTurbo, TeraTurbo, PortableTurbo, and SlimRackTurbo are trademarks of @fax, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.