Sphere 3D NEO Series Tape Libraries & Autoloaders Now Support LTO-7 With Increased Capacity

SAN JOSE, Calif., Nov. 6, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sphere 3D Corp. (NASDAQ:ANY), a containerization, virtualization and data management solutions provider, today announced that its NEO Series of tape libraries and autoloaders, offered by its wholly-owned subsidiary Overland Storage, now support the LTO-7 (Linear Tape-Open 7) tape format. Sphere 3D's support of the recently unveiled LTO-7 tape technology expands the company's portfolio of offerings that equip large-scale, hybrid environments with lower cost, more energy efficient and increasingly reliable data storage and archiving solutions. The company is hosting a webinar, "LTO-7, Taking a Leap Forward in "Worry-free" Data Storage Solutions" on Tuesday, November 10 at 10:00 a.m. PST to review the latest developments related to these products.

NEO Series tape libraries provide a compelling, cost-effective and long-term storage solution by delivering best-in-class features for SMB and enterprise backup and archive applications. When configured with LTO-7, NEO tape libraries and autoloaders are designed to deliver up to 140% increases in storage capacity and more than 80% increases in data throughput.

Next-generation LTO-7 technology provides up to 15 terabytes (TB) of compressed data per cartridge, compared to the 6.25TB offered in previous-generation LTO-6 tape drives. Data transfer rates also occur much more rapidly with LTO-7 at rates of up to 750MB per second, or 2.7TB of data per hour per drive. The NEO Series tape libraries with LTO-7 technology provide customers with solutions capable of delivering up to 8 petabytes (PB) of storage capacity at speeds of up to 64TB/hour for just $.02 per GB.

"Sphere 3D delivers a diverse portfolio of data management solutions that are workload optimized to address divergent use-case scenarios and customer needs," said Nilesh Patel, Vice President of Product Management and Marketing for Sphere 3D. "Tape-based storage continues to be an integral part of the data storage hierarchy as many enterprises recognize it as the most economical approach for the backup and archiving of multiple terabytes to petabytes of data. Also, an increasing number of enterprises desire a dual storage approach and leverage tape backup as an 'insurance policy' for long-term, off-site retention to protect some or all of their cloud-based storage."

Patel continued, "Our customer base clearly recognizes the ongoing role tape plays as an affordable storage solution. We have seen 114% growth over the last 3 years in the amount of data being stored on tape. Also, the LTO technology roadmap anticipates 120TB on a cartridge and data rates of nearly 10TB/hour. With our NEO series, we give the enterprise the price, capacity, performance and scalability options they are seeking today, while ensuring their investment protection for the future."

Sphere 3D's NEO Series of products are in use by over 200,000 users worldwide in a variety of applications, including backup and archive for medical imaging, finance, education, government, oil and gas, media and entertainment, and retail. The NEO Series product range provides a variety of solutions designed for businesses of all sizes from SMEs to large enterprises.

Product Highlights

NEO XL-Series libraries address the need for midrange and enterprise businesses to do more with less by providing an effortless automated backup that combines flexibility, density, high-performance and affordability to enable data to be protected faster, smarter, more easily and cost effectively. The product family allows customers to customize their backup and archive solution by starting out as a 6 unit, 80 cartridge, 6-drive library and scaling to as many as 560 slots and 42 tape drives as customer backup and archive needs change. The NEO 8000e archive and backup system for the most demanding enterprise complements the NEOxl line by delivering exceptional functionality and storage of up to 1000 cartridges and 24 tape drives.

The NEO S-Series family of libraries, as well as our stand alone tape drives, address smaller capacity requirements by combining ease of use, compactness and affordability with 1, 2 and 4 unit solutions that range from 8 to 48 slots, and 1 to 4 tape drives.

Pricing and Availability

Shipment of the LTO-7 based NEOxl and NEO 8000e platforms, and LTO-7 media, will begin in December. LTO-7 for the NEO S-Series, and Sphere 3D desktop and internal stand-alone tape drives, will begin shipping in Q1 2016. MSRP starts at a U.S.-list price of $4,999 for a NEO tape library solution.

About Sphere 3D

Sphere 3D Corp. (NASDAQ:ANY) delivers containerization and virtualization technologies along with data management products that enable workload-optimized solutions. We achieve this through a combination of containerized applications, virtual desktops, virtual storage and physical hyper-converged platforms. Sphere 3D's value proposition is simple and direct—we allow organizations to deploy a combination of public, private or hybrid cloud strategies while backing them up with state of the art storage solutions. Sphere 3D, along with its wholly-owned subsidiaries Overland Storage and Tandberg Data, has a strong portfolio of brands including Glassware 2.0™, SnapCLOUD™, SnapScale^®, SnapServer^®, V3, RDX^®, and NEO^®. For more information, visit www.sphere3d.com.

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release may contain forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Actual results and the timing of events could differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements as a result of risks and uncertainties including, without limitation, unforeseen changes in the course of Sphere 3D's business or the business of its wholly-owned subsidiaries, including, without limitation, Overland Storage and Tandberg Data; any failure in the functionality of the NEO Series of tape libraries and autoloaders, either independently or used in conjunction with the LTO-7 tape technology, the continued adoption by users of our NEO Series of products, any increase in Sphere 3D's cash needs or our inability to obtain additional debt or equity financing; performance of our products; the level of success of our collaborations and business partnerships; possible actions by customers, partners, suppliers, competitors or regulatory authorities; and other risks detailed from time to time in Sphere 3D's periodic reports contained in our Annual Information Form and other filings with Canadian securities regulators (www.sedar.com) and in prior periodic reports filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (www.sec.gov). Sphere 3D undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether written or oral, that may be made from time to time, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise, except as required by law.

CONTACT: Media Contacts: Eileen Elam Sphere 3D 408-283-4734 media.relations@sphere3d.com Nick Foot BWW Communications +44-1491-636393 Nick.foot@bwwcomms.com

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