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Sacramento Police Department Reduces Backup by More Than 70 Percent With Overland Storage REO/NEO Disk-to-Disk-to-Tape Solution

February 8, 2005

REO 4000 Backup and Recovery Appliance Integrates With NEO 2000 Tape Library to Provide Instant Data Recovery and Long-Term Archival

SAN DIEGO, Feb. 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Overland Storage, Inc. (Nasdaq: OVRL), a leading provider of backup and recovery solutions, today announced that the Sacramento Police Department has deployed the company's REO(TM) disk-based backup and recovery appliances along with a NEO(R) 2000 tape library. The combined solution safeguards critical department data, applications and custom tools for the California capital's more than 700 police officers. Overland's highly affordable and flexible disk-to-disk-to-tape (D2D2T) solution reduced the department's backup window by more than 70 percent, from fifteen hours to less than four, yielding significant time and cost savings in tape management. West Coast Technology, an Overland Storage value-added reseller, facilitated the deployment.

The Sacramento Police Department embraces leading-edge technology to provide officers with access to the latest information, including various national, regional and local crime-related databases. An increasing focus on automation and efficiency ultimately led to a data-intensive environment with storage management requirements that doubled over a two-year period. Having outgrown its existing tape automation system, the department sought additional storage capacity, as well as a more effective way to manage its mounting backup and recovery demands.

According to Lance Hawkes, senior systems engineer for the Sacramento Police Department, tape backups had become unreliable, unwieldy and unmanageable. An inordinate amount of time was spent overseeing the flawed process, which often encroached into production hours, causing server lags and impacting network performance.

In working with West Coast Technology to find a high-capacity, scalable replacement for an aging seven-tape autoloader, Hawkes discovered that Overland's REO disk-based appliance and NEO tape library system offered a highly cost-effective and flexible D2D2T system for less than the cost of most stand-alone tape libraries. "Overland's REO and NEO products surpassed all others in terms of price and performance, giving us a powerful combination of disk-based backup and recovery and tape automation," said Hawkes. "With Overland, backups are faster and easier than ever, which frees valuable IT resources to concentrate on other projects."

One project gaining momentum at the department is the deployment of Digital CrimeScene from South Carolina-based DataWorks Plus. The Sacramento Police Department and County Sheriff's office are the first agencies in the region to automate forensic photography using Digital CrimeScene, a sophisticated system that includes web-based retrieval capabilities to access native digital formats and scanned film images. This vital system will be tied eventually to all other agencies involved in the prosecution process-including the County Coroner's Office, fingerprint examiners, the district attorney's office, and investigators and detectives at both the Police and Sheriff's Departments. The department plans to use its integrated REO/NEO solution for backing up and archiving all Digital CrimeScene files, which will become critical with greater reliance on digitally stored images.

"Digital CrimeScene is an excellent example of how the Sacramento Police Department adopts state-of-the-art systems to solve crimes and protect our citizens," said Hawkes. "However, we wouldn't be able to deploy these leading-edge solutions without a strong, easy-to-manage backup and recovery foundation. The flexibility and scalability of the REO and NEO make it easy for us to set up, modify and manage new storage volumes on-the-fly, using a simple web interface that is highly intuitive and doesn't require any special training or expertise."

The department also uses its REO backup appliances to assist with information lifecycle management (ILM) by providing interim storage during major system upgrades and technology migrations. If any problems occur during the move to newer platforms, the department can deploy the REO for near-instantaneous restoration of files, photos and applications. Plans are also underway to incorporate REO backup appliances in the department's burgeoning disaster recovery efforts.

"The REO and NEO installation at the Sacramento Police Department showcases the versatility and flexibility of Overland's powerful yet simple D2D2T approach," said Dave Holloway, chief operating officer, West Coast Technology. "The combination of the REO 4000 disk-based appliance and the NEO 2000 tape library delivers shorter backup windows, immediate data recovery, and reliable, long-term archiving. In addition, the Overland solution is highly scalable, so it can meet the needs of the department well into the future."

"Today's IT organizations are struggling to protect growing amounts of critical data while streamlining administration of the backup and recovery process," said John Matze, vice president and chief technology officer, Overland Storage. "The REO/NEO combination, with its seamless integration, effortless management and industry-leading performance, is an ideal solution for meeting these demands."

Introduced in April 2004, the REO 4000 incorporates high-capacity, serial ATA disks, specialized software, both iSCSI and Fibre Channel connectivity, and RAID 5 capabilities. The NEO 2000 minimizes costly downtime and keeps pace with rapidly expanding requirements with each module supporting up to 26 SDLT or 30 LTO cartridge slots and up to two tape drives, providing up to 15.6 TB of capacity. When integrated, The REO and NEO series offer one of the most comprehensive yet cost-effective D2D2T solutions on the market.

The REO 4000 and NEO 2000 are available through select Overland partners. For more information, please visit www.overlandstorage.com

About Overland Storage

For almost 25 years, Overland Storage has delivered world-class data protection solutions designed to ensure business continuity. Focused on backup and recovery, Overland's data protection solutions include the REO(TM) family of disk-based backup and recovery appliances and the award-winning NEO SERIES(R) of tape libraries. 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 delays, unbudgeted expenses, inefficiencies and production problems that may result from the transition of manufacturing to Sanmina-SCI; difficulty of predicting sales to the company's major OEM customer; worldwide information technology spending levels; unexpected shortages of critical components; rescheduling or cancellation of customer orders; loss of a major customer; the market acceptance of the company's REO product line, the timing and market acceptance of new product introductions by the company, including the company's new software PACs, competitors or licensees of the company; 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 general 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.

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SOURCE Overland Storage, Inc.
02/08/2005
CONTACT: Media, Melinda Hutcheon, PR Manager of Overland Storage, +1-858-495-4187, mhutcheon@overlandstorage.com; or Chris Walker of Brodeur Worldwide, +1-602-808-1170, cwalker@brodeur.com, for Overland Storage
Web site: http://www.overlandstorage.com