FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

iQstor Debuts Affordable, Intelligent SATA Storage System

iQstor is First to Market a SATA Storage System with Embedded Data Services in One Chassis; First to Market with a 1TB Solution under $10,000

Newbury Park, Calif. – March 9, 2004 – As IT and storage administrators search to find storage network solutions that deliver scalability, ease of management and intelligence in a cost-efficient package, iQstor Networks has come to their rescue. iQstor has released its new iQ1200, a self-contained storage system that combines enterprise-level features with cost-effective Serial ATA (SATA) drives to deliver efficient storage growth, scalability, data protection, storage automation and plug and play simplicity – at a price point that’s dramatically less than comparable Fibre Channel solutions.

With the new iQ1200 Storage System, iQstor marks two firsts for the industry: first to market with a SATA product that features embedded data services and SATA storage in one 3U chassis; and first to market with a 1TB storage solution for under $10,000.

Designed to address the needs of small to mid-size business (SMB) customers, the iQ1200 enables storage administrators to quickly and cost-effectively optimize storage solutions for diverse fixed content applications. Applications include digital media and imaging as well as near-line and archiving applications for financial, legal, healthcare and educational institutions.

iQ1200 is a full-featured 2Gb storage system, providing maximum flexibility, scalability and cost-effectiveness for businesses, large and small. With all key internal components being hot-swappable and redundant, the iQ1200 ensures dependable data protection and delivery to help keep business-critical applications running smoothly. Additionally, as storage management requirements evolve, users have the option of enabling the iQ1200’s enhanced data services that include storage virtualization, snapshot, mirroring, remote replication, storage provisioning and automated capacity growth.

“iQstor’s iQ1200 delivers business a robust and economical SATA solution with the availability, manageability, data integrity and enterprise-level functionality that, until now, have been only available to enterprise users,” Jason Lo, president, iQstor Networks, said. “As SMBs face the challenge of addressing their expanding storage requirements in affordable and cost-saving ways, the iQ1200 brings cost efficiencies and ease-of-management in an ideal solution that’s available today.”

In addition to delivering an intelligent and affordable solution to end users, the iQ1200 is also being used as a platform for easy to deploy appliances that automate many IT tasks.

“We’ve chosen the iQ1200 to serve as the foundation of our upcoming DSA appliances, using the data services features embedded in iQstor’s platform to deliver additional ease-of-use and automation,” Peter Jones, president and chief executive officer, JAAG Inc., said. “The power of iQstor’s data services, when combined with the affordability of the iQ1200 platform, allows us to deliver storage appliances that bring top features to users at a very competitive price.” JAAG is a technology partner of iQstor; the company is demonstrating its J-Tape appliance in iQstor’s booth at Network Storage 2004.

iQ1200 Ships with Intelligence Onboard
From its inception, the iQ1200 has been designed to allow business to intelligently manage, and protect customer’s valuable data. Starting with iQstor’s SAN Manager, a centralized policy-based tool that allows administrators to dynamically configure and manage a SAN, each iQ1200 comes equipped with embedded data services software that is easily activated to solve business requirements. Data management services include:

• Storage Virtualization Services (SVS): iQstor’s SVS offers SMBs many benefits, including the ability to easily consolidate storage resources, reduce complexity, provision storage on demand, and create multiple virtual arrays from a single system. With SVS, users can easily add cost-effective diskless servers or new servers with different operating systems and different applications in a single consolidated storage array with no downtime.
  
• Managed Snapshot Services (MSS): iQstor’s MSS provides quick and easy virtual duplication of critical data that is available at administrators fingertips when they need it. Using MSS, administrators can maximize the limited backup windows available for today’s 24x7 business applications with non-disruptive snapshots that ensure data availability, require fractional space (typically 10% to 20% compared to a full copy) and enable a zero-backup window full performance backup.
  
• Volume Copy Services (VCS): iQstor’s VCS feature provides a comprehensive replication solution within the iQ1200 storage system, creating a duplicate physical copy of a volume (vdisk) to effectively manage information growth and data protection. With VCS, companies have an excellent tool for decision support, system analysis, and application testing, bringing an exact physical duplicate of source data for immediate use by single or multiple users.
  
• Intelligent Capacity Management Services (ICM): iQstor’s ICM allows continuous monitoring of storage consumption to easily prevent the system from running out of storage. The intelligent policy-based management component of ICM allows the IT administrator to automate file system and disk partition processes, setting thresholds and policies to provision capacity from one or more storage pools without server interruption. This intelligent process eliminates costly downtime associated with traditional physical disk upgrades and with re-building and re-formatting operating system partitions that are due to unforeseen changes in storage requirements.
  
• Remote Replication Services (RRS): iQstor’s RRS brings the ultimate solution for disaster recovery to SMBs, allowing them to restart mission-critical applications immediately after a primary site disaster by bringing critical activities back online. Using RRS, IT administrators have a cost-effective and flexible solution for business data synchronization between local and remote volumes (both synchronous and asynchronous) that allows them to easily create an exact copy of a volume and assign that copy to an application server for immediate use – making the process of moving and using data from external sources a straightforward and efficient process.

iQ1200 Technical Specifications
Each iQ1200 supports up to fifteen Serial ATA disk drives providing 3.75TB of storage capacity. A full-featured 2Gb storage system, the iQ1200 provides four front-end FC ports and up to 4GB of cache memory per storage system. All key internal components including the storage processors, disk drives, power supplies and cooling modules are hot-swappable and redundant. The iQ1200 features dual active SP120 storage processor modules with transparent fail-over support for increased availability. Integrated RAID levels 0, 1, 3, 5, 1+0 provide data protection and help keep business-critical applications running smoothly.

Pricing and Availability
The iQ1200 storage system is available through iQstor’s network of domestic and international business partners. iQ1200 estimated end-user pricing starts from $9,995 for an entry level 1.2TB configuration with virtualization software. A near-line configuration with 3.75TB and virtualization software is priced at $16,576. A configuration with 3.75TB, SAN Manager and data services software suite is priced at $33,572.

About iQstor Networks, Inc.
A privately held company based in Newbury Park, CA, iQstor is a leader in the innovative design and delivery of storage solutions with embedded enterprise level functionality to channel partners worldwide. Its storage solutions include the iQ1000 Storage System, policy based storage management, data services software, professional services, support and training. For more information on iQstor, visit the company’s web site at www.iqstor.com.