News Release

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 14, 2001--Overland Data, Inc. (Nasdaq:OVRL), a technology leader in automated tape backup products, announced today that it broke ground for a new facility in the Kearny Mesa area of San Diego, Calif., on March 12.

The planned 158,000-square-foot facility will provide Overland with a properly configured infrastructure with sufficient space for its team of engineering, operations, production and worldwide marketing and sales staffs. The Company is currently headquartered on Balboa Avenue in San Diego. The new facilities complement Overland's European presence, based in Wokingham, U.K., with offices in Paris, France and Munich, Germany.

Overland's future home, the Kearny Mesa Spectrum, is owned by Layton-Belling & Associates, a full-service real estate investment, management and development company based in Newport Beach, Calif., with offices in San Diego and Los Angeles. Reno Contracting, one of San Diego's premier build-to-suit contractors, was selected by Layton-Belling to head up construction.

Scott McClendon, Overland Chairman, and Christopher Calisi, newly-elected president and CEO, noted the Company's 20th anniversary. McClendon said that with a 28 percent annual compound growth rate and 20 consecutive years of record revenues, Overland has steadily grown to become an unqualified success. According to Calisi, "We are now in a position to make a move into a complex that is better suited to our primary production and engineering needs. Our breaking ground on a brand-new facility is a sign of our continued commitment to our employees, customers and investors as we forge ahead into the next 20 years with a proven plan of continued growth and success."

Overland has strategically evolved its business and product mix to focus on unbeatable automated storage solutions from entry-level to enterprise solutions. With more than 40,000 automated tape libraries shipped worldwide and 27 product awards, Overland's steady success has led it to become one of the leading suppliers of midrange tape automation products. The Company considers its reputation for quality, reliability and versatility the primary driver of its continued growth.

About Overland

Overland Data, Inc. (Nasdaq:OVRL) is a global supplier of innovative data storage and storage automation solutions for computer networks. The Company's award-winning DLT LibraryXpress(TM) SmartScale Storage(R) architecture has set the standard for intelligent automated storage and scalability and established Overland as a leader in the mid-range tape storage market. Today, Overland is broadening its product line and technology offerings to address additional segments of the storage market, including the entry-level small-business market, as well as the higher-end enterprise environment. Overland's patented Variable Rate Randomizer (VR2(TM)) data encoding technology, capable of substantially increasing the capacity and throughput of linear tape formats, is being applied by the Company to its entry-level tape drive offerings. It has also been licensed to Imation Corp., Seagate Technology, StorageTek and Tandberg Data. Overland products, acclaimed for their quality and reliability, are sold worldwide through leading OEMs, including Compaq, Fujitsu Siemens Computers, Groupe Bull and IBM, and NCR commercial distributors such as Bell Microproducts, Ingram Micro and Tech Data Corp., as well as storage integrators and value-added resellers.

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 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 and its competitors, general competition and price pressures in the marketplace, and the Company's ability to control costs and expenses. 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.

--30--ss/la* sjk/la