News Release

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 29, 2000--

SANPiper Product Family Passes Qualification Testing for PCI, SBus

HBAs; Strengthens Overland's Position in Fibre Channel SAN Market

Overland Data Inc. (Nasdaq:OVRL), a technology leader in tape backup products, today announced that its SANPiper(TM) SCSI-to-Fibre Channel bridge has been certified for use with JNI Corp.'s (Nasdaq:JNIC) FibreStar(a) FCE-3210/FCE-6410 PCI-to-Fibre Channel for the NT market and FibreStar FC64-1063 SBus-to-Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapters for the Sun market.

JNI, named by IDC as the fastest-growing Fibre Channel host bus adapter manufacturer in 1999, offers a broad line of Storage Area Network (SAN) components such as Fibre Channel HBAs and software.

"We're very excited to be working with one of the premier names in Fibre Channel," said Steve Richardson, vice president of marketing at Overland. "As demand for our tape libraries surge, a robust and interoperable Fibre Channel connection is mandatory in a data center supporting multiple platforms and systems. JNI provides the high-quality, enterprise-level solution to connect our products to today's SANs."

The JNI certification continues a strong history of SAN-capable achievements for Overland products. While multivendor SANs offer users the opportunity to select best-of-breed components, interoperability remains a challenge in enterprise computing environments. As a founding member of the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA), Overland has continually promoted the development of standards that will assure compatibility for customers choosing SAN products.

Overland's Fibre Channel Connectivity Initiative, announced in 1998, committed the company to an open connectivity model that would allow customers to use their current Overland library investment with their choice of approved third-party Fibre Channel product to create SAN-capable libraries.

"Overland has distinguished itself by providing a scalable tape library solution," said Tracy Crowe, senior director of marketing, JNI. "Scalability and JNI's products go hand-in-hand. We're pleased to contribute to Overland's growth as part of their overall storage solution."

The SANPiper provides Overland library users up to six independent Fibre Channel ports and up to four SCSI connections with support for single-ended and differential SCSI and copper, short- and long-wave Fibre Channel interfaces. SANPiper gives the company's customers easy access to Fibre-based SANs and new SAN-based applications, including LAN-free and server-free backup.

SANPiper is a flexible SAN connectivity solution that offers all critical SAN functionality in a configurable product series, with the connection flexibility to be the centerpiece of a larger SAN configuration with full support for Fibre Channel hubs and switches as well as extended copy serverless backup and LAN-based management.

About JNI Corp.

JNI Corp. (Nasdaq:JNIC) is the fastest-growing Fibre Channel host bus adapter company and the No. 2 manufacturer of Fibre Channel HBAs (non-captive) in revenue in 1999 according to IDC (3/00). JNI offers a broad line of HBAs, ASICs and software for Storage Area Networks (SANs). JNI's PCI products operate on Solaris, Windows 2000, Windows NT, Novell, Linux and MacOS systems. JNI's SBus products run on Solaris. Customers include Amdahl, Avid, Chaparral, Compaq StorageWorks, Consan, EMC, Eurologic, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi Data Systems, IBM, LSI Logic, McData, MTI, StorageTek and Sun Microsystems. Company headquarters are in San Diego. www.jni.com.

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 new standards 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 to the company to its entry-level tape drive offerings. It has also been licensed to Seagate Technology, Tandberg Data, Imation Corp. and StorageTek.

Overland products, acclaimed for their quality and reliability, are sold worldwide through leading OEMs, including Compaq, IBM, Fujitsu Siemens Computers and Groupe Bull, commercial distributors such as Ingram Micro, Tech Data Corp. and Bell Microproducts, as well as storage integrators and value-added resellers.

With the exception of historical information, the statements set forth above include forward-looking statements that involve risk and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. These risks include the rapidly changing technology in JNI's markets; the evolving industry standards and frequent introductions of new products and enhancements; the fact that the Fibre Channel market is at an early stage of development; and JNI's reliance on certain contract manufacturers, OEMs, distributors and key customers. These and other risks are discussed in JNI's registration statement on Form S-1 and other reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

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 Overland Data'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 Overland Data 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 Overland Data'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 Overland Data undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements to reflect new information, events or circumstances after the date of this release.

(a) JNI, JNIC, DriverSuite, FibreStar and `First in Fibre Channel' are registered trademarks or trademarks of JNI Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.

--30--jap/la* mk/la