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FlashNAS High Performance Storage Appliance

Burlington, MA. December 10, 2001 - Winchester Systems announced a new high performance, heterogeneous storage appliance called FlashNAS. The storage appliance permits adding storage to a LAN "on-the-fly" without bringing the LAN or servers down or disrupting users and supports. The product also supports snapshot backups. It is powered by Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Appliance software that supports Windows Common Internet File System (CIFS), Network File System (NFS) for UNIX and Linux, Novell Netware (CNP) and Appletalk Protocol (AFP) file systems.

Network Ready Storage Appliance
The company's FlashNAS is a "filer" comprised of a server running the Microsoft software that provides the network file services attached to the company's flagship high performance FlashDisk OpenRAID disk arrays, available in fibre channel and Ultra160 SCSI. FlashNAS connects to the network via industry standard Ethernet.

"Winchester Systems is now delivering a true storage appliance powered by Microsoft that delivers a credible and superior NAS solution to the traditional expensive alternatives," according to Mr. Joel Leider , the company's chief executive officer.

Multi-Platform Support
FlashNAS supports heterogeneous clients. Logical volumes can be dedicated to individual operating system file structures. More powerfully, a single volume can serve files to multiple operating systems simultaneously. The product stores the data only once in a standard format and uses built-in presentation layers to deliver data in various formats to different operating systems on each server. This powerful cross-platform file sharing is perfect for applications like publishing where different portions of a page are prepared on different platforms.

Snapshot backups
FlashNAS supports snapshot backups that create up to 250 "point-in-time" images of data per volume, for up to 255 volumes, and are created on demand or scheduled periodically. Snapshot backups are based on block level changes to the original files and take a fraction of the storage of complete image copies. The snapshot software presents users with complete images of full files and folders on demand. Thus, each snapshot is immediately ready to use when needed.

Performance
Each FlashDisk OpenRAID disk array in the FlashNAS provides 13,000 sustained disk operations per second and up to 121 MB per second sustained data throughput. In a single cabinet, FlashDisk provides 117,000 sustained disk operations per second and over 1 GB per second data throughput. This is 5 to 25 times more performance than the most popular "frame" storage systems.

Compatibility
FlashNAS supports all open system servers including HP, SUN, IBM, Intel and MAC running any operating system including UNIX, NT and Linux with no host software drivers needed.

Price and Delivery
A complete FlashNAS system, including the server appliance and snapshot software plus a high performance FlashDisk OpenRAID disk array with 880 GB of storage, is priced at $47,312 with an Ultra160 SCSI connection to the server and $51,994 with a fibre channel connection. Delivery is two to three weeks.

On-Line FlashNAS Information:

• http://www.winsys.com/products/flnas.php

About Winchester Systems
Winchester Systems provides SAN and NAS capable enterprise storage solutions including high performance SCSI and fibre channel RAID disk arrays, solid-state disks, tape backup devices and other high performance commercial and military grade storage for mid-range servers including UNIX and NT. Winchester Systems provides products that support today's most demanding industrial, government and commercial applications. For more information, contact Winchester Systems Inc., 149 Middlesex Turnpike, Burlington, MA 01803, USA. Toll free: 800-325-3700, international: 781-265-0200, fax: 781-265-0201. E-mail address: info@winsys.com, web site: www.winsys.com.

Winchester Systems, FlashDisk and OpenRAID are trademarks or registered trademarks of Winchester Systems All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such.

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