FREMONT, Calif.--July 18, 2001--MaxOptix Corp., a technology leader in secondary storage solutions, today announced that its groundbreaking StreamIT(TM) backup appliance has been certified by Dantz Development Corp. for use with its award-winning Retrospect(R) Backup software, making the StreamIT the first tape storage solution to offer multiple drive support on the Macintosh platform.     MaxOptix' StreamIT appliance brings the performance and high availability benefits of RAID technology to tape backup and restore applications, providing Mac users with the benefits of the cumulative bandwidth of up to five AIT-2 drives for unmatched data backup and restore performance and fault-tolerant reliability.     Unlike conventional tape libraries, which are limited to use of a single drive on the Macintosh platform, MaxOptix' innovative PowerStream(TM) RAID controller technology presents the five-drive array to the host as a single large volume. The StreamIT appliance is completely transparent under Retrospect software, allowing current Retrospect users to easily integrate a high-performance tape array into their existing tape backup infrastructure. In addition, the StreamIT appliance is impervious to any single failure point, enabling users to complete backup and restore operations even in the event of a total drive or media failure.     StreamIT is fully compatible with Retrospect Backup 4.3, the latest Dantz release for the Mac, a full featured data protection application with comprehensive administration tools that enables the backup of Windows and Mac OS clients -- including OS X -- across TCP/IP networks.     "Apple has continued to be a dominant presence in the graphics arts, Web site authoring and digital media markets, all of which are extremely data-intensive and beg for reliable, high-performance data protection solutions," said Fred Bedard, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at MaxOptix. "StreamIT addresses these users with a redundant, high-availability architecture and unprecedented backup and restore performance. The combination of Retrospect and StreamIT gives Macintosh users a next-generation data protection solution to keep pace with the hardware and software innovations launched by Apple in recent months."     "The publishing and graphics industries, which have massive storage demands, rely a great deal on Macintosh computers," said Craig Isaacs, Dantz's Vice President of Sales and Marketing. "MaxOptix' StreamIT appliance is an incredibly compelling product. When mated with our Retrospect Backup software, it brings world class backup performance and reliability to the demanding Mac user."     StreamIT is the first integrated solution that brings the benefits of traditional disk-based RAID technology to tape storage. The exceptional reliability and performance of the StreamIT is based on the innovative RAID for Removable Media architecture enabled by MaxOptix's PowerStream controller technology. The array supports a variety of configurations through a single Ultra-2 SCSI host or Fibre-channel connection to precisely meet customer requirements based on cost, performance and availability parameters.     The StreamIT backup and restore appliance supports both RAID level-1 -- with data mirrored across up to five individual drives or one or two pairs of drives -- and RAID level-3 operation where data and parity information are striped across five AIT-2 drives, while taking advantage of the aggregate bandwidth of all tape drives, to create data transfer rates of over 130 GB/hr. and providing corporate customers with a failure-resistant tape solution that can withstand a single AIT drive or media failure and continue backup or restore operations with no loss of data or interruption of service. To further enhance system reliability and fault tolerance, the StreamIT incorporates N+1 cooling fans and optional N+1 power supplies.     MaxOptix StreamIT is currently available in rack mount configurations with five-drive configurations with either an UltraSCSI-2 or Fibre Channel interface. List prices are $34,995 and $38,995 respectively. In addition to Retrospect on the Mac platform, the new tape array is supported on all major storage management applications as well as operating systems.