Overland Licenses VR2 Technology to Quantum

Overland Data Inc. , which makes mid-range tape automation solutions, today announced that Quantum Corp. , a provider of data protection and network storage, has signed an agreement to license Overland’s patented Variable Rate Randomizer (VR2) technology.

Overland’s VR2 technology will be integrated into future Quantum tape drive offerings, officials said.

Overland’s VR2 substantially increases the capacity and throughput of linear tape formats. The first successful implementation of Partial Response Maximum Likelihood (PRML) channel encoding technology on linear tape drive platforms, VR2 can increase native capacity and native data transfer rate performance of existing linear tape technologies by as much as 50 to 100 percent without requiring any changes in tape path design, recording heads and/or media. This is accomplished by achieving rate efficiency of greater than 99 percent, making it one of the most effective PRML implementations ever developed.

Christopher Calisi, president and CEO of Overland, said, “The majority of our tape automation business is based upon DLT (Digital Linear Tape), and we are pleased that VR2 will be an enabling technology to advance the future success of DLTtape drives. Quantum now joins a growing roster of companies who have licensed VR2 including StorageTek, Seagate, Imation and Tandberg Data. We are optimistic that VR2 licensing revenue will make a meaningful contribution to Overland’s profitability beginning in calendar 2002.”