New Highly Scalable s3000 Brings sTec SSD Performance, Reliability, Endurance to NexentaStor, Windows Environments

SANTA ANA, Calif., June 18, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- sTec, Inc. (NASDAQ: STEC), a leading global provider of solid-state storage solutions, today announced worldwide availability of its recently introduced sTec® s3000 storage appliance. The s3000 combines the performance, reliability and endurance of sTec's industry-leading solid-state drive (SSD) technology with the two foremost enterprise-storage operating systems - NexentaStor from Nexenta Systems, and Microsoft Windows Storage Server 2012 - to provide storage clustering, virtualization and management features within a unified, cost-effective hardware configuration.

With up to 96 terabytes (TB) of solid-state storage per appliance, the s3000 is a significant addition to sTec's solid-state storage product portfolio of enterprise SSD drives and caching software that are among the top performing in the industry. Furthermore, the s3000 demonstrates sTec's commitment to providing an expansive range of tailored solid-state storage solutions, directly to the enterprise or through the company's growing global partner program.

"In providing customized SSD solutions to meet our customers' storage requirements, we discovered a significant opportunity for an sTec-developed appliance that blends the power and performance of sTec SSDs with the capabilities and widespread deployment of NexentaStor and Windows Storage Server 2012 storage systems," said Ali Zadeh, corporate senior vice president and chief marketing officer, and general manager of the Systems and Software Group, sTec. "The s3000 is an ideal solution for IT managers looking to tailor their data centers to meet the demanding performance needs of their data-intensive applications."

"The s3000 reflects a dramatic shift in enterprise systems in that its cost-effectiveness, scalability and expandability to several hundreds of terabytes flash storage are paramount requirements of today's IT managers," said Evan Powell, chief strategy officer, Nexenta Systems. "Further, its ability to fit seamlessly into NexentaStor environment means the s3000 can be deployed quickly and take full advantage of the storage and data management features of our software."

As with all sTec solid-state storage solutions, the s3000 is architected for enterprise-class storage, enabling it to address the critical-data requirements of industries such as oil and gas, government, telecommunications, and cloud computing.  With a large in-house team of storage, application and data center experts, sTec is able to work directly with customers to develop ideal approaches for tailoring their data centers to optimally incorporate the s3000 along with its other SSD solutions.

With performance as high as 1.2 million IOs per second (IOPS) and featuring sTec Serial Attached Storage (SAS) SSDs with up to twice the endurance of competing drives, the s3000 harnesses the power of sTec SSD technology to reduce application execution time and increase real-time access to high-demand, shared assets.  By building the s3000 around NexentaStor and Windows Storage Server 2012, sTec is bringing to market a high-performance storage appliance that can be integrated with existing storage systems, enhance traditional file-serving capabilities, and extend hypervisors such as Hyper-V and file-based storage for application workloads such as, SQL Server and SharePoint. The s3000 is particularly applicable in virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) environments and those requiring performance-intensive I/O deployments to achieve higher virtualization consolidation factors. 

The s3000 provides continuous availability and full redundancy through NexentaStor and Windows Server 2012 Storage Spaces environments, and enables hot-swapping of drives and power supplies. It offers flexible, unified storage and data reduction through de-duplication and thin provisioning. Additionally, the s3000 is highly scalable; it can be configured with one or two 19-inch rack-mountable drive shelves, each accommodating as many as 24 SSDs, and can scale up to eight full interconnected appliances for a total of 768 TB of solid-state storage.                                                    

About sTec, Inc.

sTec, Inc. is a leading global provider of enterprise-class solid-state storage solutions designed for the ever-growing performance, reliability and endurance requirements of today's advanced data centers. The industry's first company to deploy SSDs into large-scale enterprise environments, sTec offers the industry's widest range of solid-state storage solutions, which protect critical information for major business and government organizations worldwide. Headquartered in Santa Ana, California, sTec also serves the embedded and military/aerospace markets with SSDs for industrial and rugged environments. For more information, visit www.stec-inc.com.

sTec and the sTec logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of sTec, Inc. in the United States and certain other countries.  All other trademarks or brand names referred to herein are the property of their respective owners.

Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. This release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, including those statements concerning the benefits, capabilities, performance, and cost savings of the sTec s3000 solid-state storage appliance and solid-state storage solutions; the benefits, capabilities, and performance from the incorporation of sTec's SSD technology into the sTec s3000 storage appliance; the benefits of the sTec s3000 solid-state storage appliance running on Nexenta's NexentaStor and Microsoft Windows Storage Server 2012 environments; expanding solid state solutions; sTec's growing global partner program; the growth of the global storage market; and critical-data requirements of oil and gas, government, telecommunications, and cloud computing markets. Such forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and involve inherent risks and uncertainties, including factors that could delay, divert or change any of them, and cause actual outcomes and results to differ materially from current expectations. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in forward-looking statements are detailed in filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, made from time to time by sTec, including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K, its subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, and its subsequent Current Reports on Form 8-K, which are available on the Investor Relations section of sTec's website at www.stec-inc.com. The information contained in this press release is a statement of sTec's present intentions, beliefs or expectations. sTec may change its intentions, beliefs or expectations, at any time and without notice, based upon any changes in such factors, from sTec's assumptions and otherwise. Except as required by law, sTec undertakes no obligation to publicly release any revisions to any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the date thereof, or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.

sTec, Inc.
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