Dot Hill to Launch Trailblazing 24TB RAID Arrays in Compact 2U Footprint, an Industry First

WD RE4-GP 2TB Hard Drives Double Storage Capacity While Reducing Energy Costs

CARLSBAD, Calif. July 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Dot Hill Systems Corp. (Nasdaq: HILL), a world-class provider of entry-level and midrange storage solutions for OEMs and system integrators (SIs), today announced it has completed qualification of Western Digital's new 2TB enterprise SATA drives, and is gearing up to launch what is anticipated to be the world's first generally available 24TB RAID storage arrays featuring a compact 2U footprint.

Slated for general availability later this month, the Dot Hill arrays leverage Western Digital's enterprise-class WD RE4-GP 2TB hard drives with WD GreenPower Technology(TM) - the world's highest capacity drives - which also offer energy efficiency.

In laboratory testing, the Dot Hill 24TB RAID array outfitted with the WD RE4-GP 2TB drives demonstrated an up to 60% reduction in power usage over that used by traditional 1TB drive technology.

"Capacity-hungry applications that have reached a dead-end with floor space now have a new lease on life," said Andy Mills, vice president of marketing, Dot Hill. "With today's announcement, Dot Hill and WD are at the forefront of a major milestone in the storage industry. The combination of Dot Hill 2U arrays and WD RE4-GP 2TB hard drives, which scale to 216TB total storage capacity, maximize data center space and reduce costs on cooling and power."

Dot Hill's move to more power-efficient drives is the latest in a series of initiatives undertaken by Dot Hill to help lower power consumption and improve efficiencies in the data center.

WD RE4-GP 2TB hard drives are eco-friendly, cool-and-quiet 3.5-inch disk drives based on WD's third-generation WD GreenPower Technology, and which use an industry-leading 500GB per platter to realize excellent performance at energy-saving speeds. WD RE4-GP 2TB drives are available today with Dot Hill 2330, 2530, 2730, 2730T, and 5730 storage arrays as well as the company's 2130 JBOD expansion arrays.

"Businesses are looking to increase capacity and performance while finding ways to trim power costs," said Tom McDorman, vice president and general manager of WD's enterprise storage solutions business unit. "We've found a way to do both with the new WD RE4-GP 2TB hard drive. With this innovative enterprise drive offering, leading RAID vendors such as Dot Hill can now easily double the capacity of their storage arrays to address customers' burgeoning storage needs."

"Today, the range of use cases for capacity-optimized storage systems is very broad and growing: digital media, data archiving, secondary storage, etc.," said Natalya Yezhkova, research manager, storage systems, with Framingham, Mass.-based industry analyst firm IDC. "IDC expects the share of capacity-optimized terabytes shipped into enterprise storage to increase from 43% in 2008 to over 70% in 2013. Dot Hill's quick move to integrate 2TB SATA drives into its storage products is a positive for the company, and is aligned well with customer expectations for high-capacity low-cost storage solutions in an optimal footprint."

Dot Hill R/Evolution Architecture Gives Customers a Competitive Advantage

Dot Hill 2000 Series and 5000 Series arrays are based on the highly modular, highly dynamic Dot Hill R/Evolution Architecture, which is designed to rapidly evolve and support OEM technology, enabling OEMs to quickly achieve sustainable competitive advantage in the volume storage market. The R/Evolution Architecture delivers the high levels of performance, storage density, time-to-market leadership and -- most importantly -- configuration flexibility required by volume storage customers. Using modular and bladed components, the R/Evolution Architecture provides OEMs with a "configure-to-product" model (not just "configure-to-order") that lets them customize volume storage market solutions quickly, easily and precisely. This unique model revolutionizes how OEMs bring storage products to market by ensuring opportunities for product differentiation, even between different companies that simultaneously OEM products from Dot Hill.

About Dot Hill

Delivering innovative technology and global support, Dot Hill empowers the OEM community to bring unique storage solutions to market, quickly, easily and cost-effectively. Offering high performance and industry-leading uptime, Dot Hill's RAID technology is the foundation for best-in-class storage solutions offering enterprise-class security, availability and data protection. The company's products are in use today by the world's leading service and equipment providers, common carriers, advanced technology and telecommunications companies as well as government agencies. Dot Hill solutions are certified to meet rigorous industry standards and military specifications, as well as RoHS and WEEE international environmental standards. Headquartered in Carlsbad, Calif., Dot Hill has offices and/or representatives in China, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom and the United States.

For more information, visit us at http://www.dothill.com/.

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Certain statements contained in this press release regarding matters that are not historical fact are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. Because such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by the statements. Forward-looking statements include statements regarding: the size and timing of orders for Dot Hill's 24TB RAID arrays; any improvement in Dot Hill's financial results due to the availability of the arrays; the technological benefits of the Dot Hill arrays due to the use of the WD RE4-GP 2TB disks; the performance of the arrays and disks in particular environments; the dates and continued availability of the 24TB arrays; and the particular amount of energy, cost and space savings available through the use of the products. Because such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. The risks that contribute to the uncertain nature of the forward-looking statements include: changing customer preferences in the open systems computing market; and unforeseen supply, technological, intellectual property or engineering issues. However, there are many other risks not listed here that may affect the future business of Dot Hill, as well as the forward-looking statements contained herein. To learn about such risks and uncertainties, you should read the risk factors set forth in the company's public filings with the SEC, including the Forms 8-K, 10-K and 10-Q most recently filed by Dot Hill. All forward-looking statements contained in this press release speak only as of the date on which they were made. Dot Hill undertakes no obligation to update such statements to reflect events that occur or circumstances that exist after the date on which they were made. IDC is independent from Dot Hill, and Dot Hill has no responsibility for or control over the statements made or research conducted by IDC.

SOURCE Dot Hill Systems Corp.