Press Release

EXAGRID ANNOUNCES KEY ENHANCEMENTS TO INDUSTRY-LEADING INTELLIGENT DISK-BASED DATA PROTECTION PRODUCT

Westborough, Mass., -- October 26, 2005 - ExaGrid Systems, Inc., the leader in Intelligent Disk-based Data Protection today announced ExaGrid release 1.5, a significant update to its core data protection product. ExaGrid release 1.5 provides advanced data management capabilities, enhanced disaster recovery, support for single site systems, and support for standard, off-the-shelf Hewlett-Packard (HP) hardware.

ExaGrid is an Intelligent Disk-based Data Protection system that works in conjunction with existing data protection environments to provide fast and more reliable online data restores and recovery. ExaGrid release 1.5 provides support for single-site deployments, which enables companies to implement ExaGrid's online disk-based system in conjunction with their existing tape library to create offsite tapes for long-term version retention. An optional ExaGrid system can be deployed, at any time, at a second site for disaster recovery. ExaGrid leverages existing technology investments and works with popular backup, replication, and email archive software.

"ESG Research did a survey this year of 163 IT managers and 76 percent of them were going to replace some of their tape libraries with disk-based backup systems," said Tony Asaro, senior analyst for the Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG). "ExaGrid is smartly focusing on disk-based backup with its Intelligent Disk-based Data Protection storage system. Companies are implementing disk-based backup solutions as a requisite part of their backup ecosystem and ExaGrid provides intelligent, cost effective solutions that include capacity efficient storage, remote replication and transparent movement of data to different tiers of storage."

Data protection is becoming more and more critical as IT departments of all sizes grapple with a host of issues surrounding how they store, retrieve, secure, and protect data.

"Rapid data growth, security threats, regulatory compliance, and competitive pressures are driving IT departments to seek alternatives to traditional tape backup systems to store and protect their data," said Bill Andrews, President and CEO of ExaGrid. "For decades, IT departments have been struggling with the limitations of tape. ExaGrid release 1.5 allows for the elimination of tape at the primary site while maintaining a traditional offsite tape strategy. Organizations can opt for a second system for offsite tape replacement and disaster recovery."

ExaGrid integrates into existing backup environments providing an online disk-based system in place of tape. With ExaGrid, administrators point existing backup applications to write directly to ExaGrid, and then write from ExaGrid to a tape library to maintain an offsite tape set.

ExaGrid release 1.5 Highlights
Purge-by-time: Enables customers to control repository storage capacity consumption by providing flexible and more granular data management capabilities. Customers can now create protection policies for different sets of data, enabling data to be purged by weeks, months, or years depending on business requirements. Protection policies may be defined on a share-by-share basis.

Purge-on-delete: Allows applications like backup, replication, document management and email archiving to control the elimination of all copies and versions of files throughout the ExaGrid system.

Single site support: Enables customers to run ExaGrid at a single site, for online data storage and restores while maintaining tape as the offsite strategy for long term retention. Customers can upgrade to a two-site system with full disaster recovery capabilities at any time.

Enhanced disaster recovery testing capabilities: Provides enhanced options for testing access to data using an ExaGrid disaster recovery system, enabling true non-disruptive data recovery testing for protected data.

Support for HP hardware: ExaGrid is now available on standard HP hardware in addition to hardware from Dell, in 19" data center rack mounted configurations.

Pricing and availability
The ExaGrid Intelligent Disk-based Data Protection system release 1.5 is currently available, with configurations starting at $22,000.

About ExaGrid
ExaGrid Systems, Inc. is a leading provider of Intelligent Disk-based Data Protection Systems. ExaGrid® works in conjunction with existing backup applications to provide cost effective, disk-based data protection. With ExaGrid, organizations can leverage technology investments while supplementing or replacing their tape libraries with a disk-based solution.

Extremely cost effective, ExaGrid provides data reduction for each version through byte-level delta technology, which requires far less disk storage than traditional data protection solutions. Storing deltas for each version instead of storing full file copies reduces the amount of disk space needed to at least 20 to 1, and can be much higher depending upon retention periods. ExaGrid delivers a turn-key, plug-and-play solution at 50% to 80% less than the cost of SATA or ATA disk.

With ExaGrid, organizations can replace onsite tape backups with a disk-based solution and still retain or supplement their existing offsite tape strategy.

The company is located in Westborough, Massachusetts, and is privately held with funding from top-tier investors Highland Capital Partners and Sigma Partners. ExaGrid Systems is located in Westborough, Massachusetts. For more information, call 800-868-6985 or visit us online at www.exagrid.com.

2000 West Park Drive, Suite 110
Westborough, MA 01581
508-898-2872

For additional information contact:
Wayne St. Amand
ExaGrid Systems, Inc.
(508) 898-2872 ext. 286
wstamand@exagrid.com