SAN DIEGO, Jan 21, 2004 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ -- Overland Storage, Inc. (Nasdaq: OVRL), the leading provider of backup and recovery solutions, today announced the company has commenced shipping the newest member of its NEO SERIES(TM) of tape libraries, the NEO 8000. Designed for the large data center and built on the award-winning NEO architecture, the NEO 8000 offers industry-leading performance, scalability, data availability and field-proven technology at the best value in its class.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20030904/LAW066 )

"The NEO 8000 represents an important milestone in Overland's market strategy to offer products with increased performance, scalability and favorable economics," said Christopher Calisi, president and chief executive officer, Overland Storage. "With the exponential growth in data assets, larger mid-range companies are vulnerable to reaching the limits of storage capacity. The NEO 8000 provides customers with a cost-effective solution to meet expanding capacity requirements, with the ability to accommodate further data storage requirements in the future."

The NEO 8000 family consists of a base model that can be easily expanded using its software key expansion feature, eliminating cumbersome mechanical changes. Capacity ranges from 100 to 500 cartridges in a 19-inch rack footprint, making the economical NEO 8000 a compact option for data center environments where space is at a premium.

"Unlike other tape libraries in its class, the NEO 8000 combines high-end functionality with mid-range affordability, enabling data centers to protect both their data assets and their technology budgets," said Robert Scroop, vice president and general manager, Storage Resource Business Unit, Overland Storage. "The NEO 8000 reinforces our mission of protecting critical assets and ensuring business continuity for our customers."

"The NEO 8000 is a strong addition to the Overland Storage portfolio," said Nancy Marrone-Hurley, senior analyst, Enterprise Storage Group. "The product line combines the proven NEO architecture with a high-density library, making the NEO 8000 a highly available, high-performance solution at one of the lowest price points in its class. By meeting the need for high-end performance at a mid-size price, the NEO 8000 will further solidify Overland's position in the data storage marketplace."

About the NEO SERIES 8000

The NEO 8000 features up to 200 TB of storage capacity in less than seven square feet of floor space. With multi-interface connectivity and support for all major operating systems, the scalable NEO 8000 protects technology investments and enables future expansion. In addition, its partitioning capability enables IT managers to simplify storage management and centralize disparate backup environments.

With built-in self-monitoring capabilities, the NEO 8000 protects itself from unexpected disruptions of service. These capabilities include drive performance monitoring, predictive failure notification and system fault isolation, allowing IT managers to anticipate and prevent potential problems. The library also includes all of the high-availability features of the award- winning NEO architecture, such as full redundancy, browser-based monitoring and control, field-proven robotics, and hot-swap drive replacement. In addition, the NEO 8000 incorporates HP Ultrium LTO 2 tape technology, the industry's highest capacity and performance tape drive.

"In developing the NEO 8000, Overland listened to what our end users have been telling us they need from a tape library system, providing a product that fulfills a unique requirement in the data center environment," said Dave Holloway, chief operating officer, West Coast Technology, an Overland value- added reseller. "With the Overland name behind the high-performance features and functionality, we recommend the NEO 8000 to our customers with confidence."

Certified with Leading Software Products

In addition, the NEO 8000 has been certified with leading software products from Computer Associates, BakBone Software, Atempo, Bridgehead Software, and Syncsort.

"With the volume of data growing at a far faster rate than IT budgets, companies must find more cost-effective ways of scaling their backup-and- recovery infrastructure," said Nigel Turner, senior vice president of BrightStor solutions at Computer Associates. "The combination of the NEO 8000 and CA's BrightStor storage management provides exactly this kind of affordable, high-performance solution."

"We are pleased to be teaming with Overland Storage and the NEO 8000," said Randy Batterson, director, strategic alliances and OEMs, Atempo. "The NEO 8000's capacity, availability and scalability complement Atempo's strengths in scalability and utility-model, vendor-agnostic solutions. Working with Overland Storage, Atempo looks forward to bringing exceptional value to U.S.-based data centers, just as we have in Europe and Asia."

Pricing and Availability

The NEO 8000 tape library is now available worldwide through select Overland partners at an MSRP of $73,530. For more information, please visit www.overlandstorage.com/neo8000.html .

About Overland Storage

Overland Storage(TM) provides world-class data storage management solutions designed to ensure business continuity. Focused on backup and recovery, Overland(TM) delivers hardware and software solutions for midrange- computer environments. These include NEO SERIES(R), the award-winning automated storage libraries that set the standard for intelligent, automated and scalable storage, and REO SERIES(TM), the disk-based backup acceleration solutions. Overland sells its products worldwide through leading OEMs, commercial distributors, storage integrators and value-added resellers. For more information, visit Overland's website at www.overlandstorage.com .

Except for the factual statements made herein, the information contained in this news release consists of forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Words and expressions reflecting optimism and satisfaction with current prospects, as well as words such as "believe," "intends," "expects," "plans," "anticipates" and variations thereof, identify forward-looking statements, but their absence does not mean that a statement is not forward looking. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of performance and the company's actual results could differ materially from those contained in such statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include continuing transitional issues at the company's major OEM customer, technology spending levels, unexpected shortages of critical components, rescheduling or cancellation of customer orders, loss of a major customer, the timing and market acceptance of new product introductions by the company, the launch of the company's new products including the NEO 8000, its competitors or its licensees, the timing and amount of licensing royalties, general competition and price pressures in the marketplace, the company's ability to control costs and expenses and economic conditions. Reference is also made to other factors set forth in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the "Risk Factors," "Management's Discussion and Analysis" and other sections of the company's Form 10-K for the most recently completed fiscal year. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this release and the company undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements to reflect new information, events or circumstances after the date of this release.

SOURCE Overland Storage, Inc.

investors, Cynthia A. Bond, Director of Corporate Communications of Overland Storage, +1-858-571-5555, cbond@overlandstorage.com ; or media, Jamie Ernst, +1-210-495-5757, jernst@brodeur.com , or Chris Walker, +1-602-808-1170, cwalker@brodeur.com , both of Brodeur Worldwide, for Overland Storage /Photo: NewsCom: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20030904/LAW066 AP Archive: http://photoarchive.ap.org PRN Photo Desk, photodesk@prnewswire.com

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