COSTA MESA, Calif., June 25- Seagate Removable Storage Solutions (RSS) and Imation Corp., leading manufacturers of Travan technology, today announced future plans for Travan technology migration. The two companies are committed to extend existing Travan products to higher capacities, performance and unique solutions. "With the ever increasing focus on data protection, there is a need in the marketplace for cost-effective and effortless ways to protect and backup entry-level servers,'' said Fara Yale, chief analyst, Gartner Dataquest. "Digital video, graphics and other storage-intensive applications could take months to replace, but can be restored from a single cartridge within minutes.'' "Our market demand for notebook, workstation and entry-level server backup storage solutions continues to grow,'' said Larry McMannon, general manager of Seagate Removable Storage Solutions. "Travan technology is reliable and is a leader among cost-effective backup solutions for a wide range of platforms. Together with Imation, we will offer tape drives with greater capacity and increased transfer rates to meet the growing storage needs of these markets.'' "Our commitment to Travan with Seagate has been an integral part of the success we have achieved with the implementation of Travan technology,'' said Frank Russomanno, general manager of Imation Data Storage Media and Services. "We look forward to further strengthening our relationship with Seagate as we continue to position Travan technology as a leading backup technology for small and medium businesses.'' In 1995, Imation launched Travan technology and Seagate partnered with Imation to develop drives based on this technology. The Travan tape drive is a reliable, cost-effective data backup and storage solution with over 10 million drives shipped worldwide. The Travan technology is available in ATAPI/IDE, SCSI, FireWire and USB interface configurations and is compatible with Windows, Macintosh, Linux and Unix operating systems. Travan technology, based on linear recording, represents an efficient cartridge and drive design that reduces tape stress, ensures data integrity and increases drive and cartridge reliability. Travan technology has established a solid heritage of affordability, reliability, scalability and performance. With features such as Seagate's patented FastSense(TM), a feature that minimizes backup time by matching drive speed with the host system, Travan technology meets the growing needs of mission-critical data backup in the business server space. Seagate's latest Travan product, TapeStor Travan Portable USB tape drive, was selected earlier this year to the exclusive WinList 100 published by Winmag.com. It joined Seagate TapeStor Travan NS 20, which was previously honored by the WinList selection. The Company has had significant success with its Travan drives receiving product awards from Windows Sources, HomePC, IDEA (Industrial Design Excellence Award), Computer Shopper, PC World UK, Mikro Datorn and PC Professional. Imation provides a comprehensive line of Travan data cartridges with capacities up to 20 Gbytes. Imation recently introduced the Travan FireWire 20-Gbyte tape drive. This FireWire-compatible external drive solution is targeted at high end workstation users in the digital video and graphics industries.