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Quantum Builds Leadership Momentum In Tape Autoloader Market

Quantum Corp, a leading provider of data protection systems, recently announced that it has gained significant momentum in the past year in the autoloader tape automation market, leveraging its channel and OEM partners to build a leadership position with its low-cost, high-performance tape autoloader product family. In 2002, Quantum supplied the worldwide market with almost one out of every three autoloaders sold. Quantum's ATL Tape Libraries address customer data protection needs from the desktop to data center and include the entry-level, value-oriented Quantum ATL ValueLoader autoloader and its high performance partner, the Quantum ATL SuperLoader autoloader. Today, Quantum also announced additional tape drive options -- DLT VS160 as well as LTO-1 -- for the ValueLoader, further enhancing its autoloader product line and strengthening Quantum's position as the leading provider of tape automation products for small to medium businesses, workgroups and remote offices.

According to Gartner Dataquest's 2002 Tape Automation Market Share report published in April 2003, Quantum improved its autoloader market share position from 2001 to 2002. Quantum has moved from a 9% unit volume share in 2001 to over 30% share in 2002. Gartner Dataquest's data indicates that in 2002 overall, Quantum was the only automation vendor of the top 5 listed to grow its automation unit volume year-on-year. Quantum introduced both its SuperLoader and ValueLoader products in 2002.

"Quantum has focused on building its autoloader product family around the strategy of providing value-focused, simple-to-use and administer, and high-performance data protection solutions," said Ted Oade, director of product marketing of Quantum's Storage Solutions Group. "By offering the broadest set of drive options, Quantum autoloaders can affordably address the data protection needs of small businesses or the performance and capacity needs of large corporate workgroups and departments."

The ValueLoader is currently available with DLT VS80 drive technology and is scheduled to be available in the coming weeks with DLT VS160 and LTO-1. The SuperLoader is currently available with DLT1, SDLT220, SDLT320, LTO-1 and LTO-2 drive options. Both autoloaders are designed to provide dense, rack-mountable data protection in a 2U (rack-unit) form factor.

The ValueLoader autoloader is designed with key features based around simplicity, ease of use and reliability, which, when matched with an extremely low acquisition cost, provide the benefits of automated backup to an increasing base of businesses that might not have considered tape automation in the past. For example, customers can now automatically backup more than a terabyte (TB) of data through the ValueLoader without swapping tape cartridges because of its eight-cartridge carousel design.

For customers looking for increased data density and performance, the SuperLoader offers ultra high density with up to 6.4 TB of capacity and scalability through either eight or 16 tape cartridge design.

Availability and Support

The ValueLoader DLT VS80 autoloader and SuperLoader with DLT1, SDLT220, SDLT320, LTO-1 and LTO-2 are available for purchase today from Quantum's network of value added resellers and direct marketers as well as leading distributors Arrow Electronics, Bell Microproducts Inc, Ingram Micro and Tech Data. The DLT VS160 and LTO-1 versions of the ValueLoader are scheduled to be available in the summer of 2003. Quantum's autoloaders can be purchased for an MSRP starting at $3,999 including a one-year Rapid Exchange standard warranty (two- and three-year upgrades are available). For complete warranty details, please visit www.quantum.com.

About Quantum

Quantum Corp, founded in 1980, is a global leader in data protection, meeting the needs of business customers with enterprise-wide storage solutions and services. Quantum is the world's largest supplier of tape drives, and its DLTtape technology is the standard for backup, archiving, and recovery of mission-critical data. Quantum is also a leader in the design, manufacture and service of automated tape libraries used to manage, store and transfer data.

Over the past year, Quantum has been one of the pioneers in the emerging market of disk-based backup, offering a solution that emulates a tape library and is optimized for data protection. Quantum sales for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2003, were approximately $871 million. Quantum Corp., 501 Sycamore Dr., Milpitas, CA 95035, 408-944-4000, www.quantum.com.

Contact: Sean Lamb, Public Relations of Quantum Corporation, 408-944-6727, or sean.lamb@quantum.com.