Hitachi Data Systems SMB Customers Cost Effectively Manage Data Growth with Simple SAN Kits for Microsoft Windows Server Environments

Design Firm, High School and a University Experience Significant Time Savings in Managing Data with Robust and Scalable Out-of-Box SAN Solution

SANTA CLARA, Calif., March 5, 2007 — Hitachi Data Systems Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE: HIT), today announced significant customer traction worldwide for the Hitachi Plug-and-play SAN Kit. Customers including Pieper and Associates, Jefferson Union High School and Bishop Burton College have successfully deployed the Plug-and-play SAN Kit for Hitachi’s Adaptable Modular Storage line and experienced improved reliability and manageability for their SAN environments, while reducing costs. The industry’s first bundled solution for the Microsoft Simple SAN initiative, the Hitachi Plug-and-play SAN Kit enables small and mid-size enterprises to easily and cost-effectively install and manage Storage Area Networks (SANs) in Microsoft Windows Server environments.

“The Hitachi Plug-and-play SAN Kit saves me several hours a week in managing information, which allows me to run my small business instead of spending time working on IT problems,” say Jeff Pieper, president, Pieper and Associates. “Additionally, with the Hitachi Data Systems solution, we can scale our storage tenfold.”

For the rapidly growing full-service advertising and design firm, which recently tripled its workforce and boasts a growing client roster, managing its IT infrastructure without adequate resources was becoming a painfully creative process. Pieper & Associates, based in Torrance, California, faced the challenge of storage administration and cost as large design files and fast data growth were quickly outpacing the agency’s storage capacity.

The Plug-and-play SAN Kit for Microsoft Simple SAN, connected to a Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage, model AMS200, provided Jefferson Union High School administrators with tools to efficiently manage the growing digital demands of the student body and meet state requirements for data retention. Encompassing five traditional regional high schools and two adult schools, Jefferson Union High School District serves over 5,000 students and their teachers in the San Francisco Bay Area.

“We never had nearly enough time for planning, analysis or system cleaning. We hadn’t defragged our servers in over a year,” said Lou Silberman, technical director, Jefferson Union High School District. “Now, with Hitachi Data Systems’ solution, we’ve seen no less than a 20-percent reduction in time spent reacting to storage reliability problems. Now we have the time for forward-looking maintenance instead of constantly putting out fires. It’s a magnificent change for us.”

Campus expansion and the ever-increasing generation of electronic data led Bishop Burton College, an education institute in the North of England, to invest, re-design, and centralize management of its data storage network. With the Plug-and-play SAN Kit for Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage, Hitachi Data Systems provided a scalable and robust solution, supporting future growth and making it possible for Bishop Burton College to reduce IT costs and efficiently allocate storage resources. Specialist public sector IT reseller, CWays, worked closely with Bishop Burton College to deploy the Hitachi Plug-and-play SAN Kit.

“Our data was increas¬ing by approximately 10-percent each year, so we required an economical and reliable solution to address current and future needs,” said Alan Anderson, IT manager, Bishop Burton College. “CWays seamlessly implemented the Plug-and-play SAN Kit for Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage, which has improved our ability to manage storage capacity to meet individual user needs. All future applications will be put onto the SAN, as it allows us to address a growing data burden while reducing total cost of ownership.”

Collaborating with Microsoft and QLogic® Corp., Hitachi Data Systems offers Plug-and-play SAN Kits compatible with Microsoft Simple SAN for Windows Server™ 2003 initiative on its Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage and Workgroup Modular Storage. The Plug-and-play SAN Kits for the Hitachi AMS200, AMS500 and WMS100 systems, designed to provide “out of box” SAN experience for users, enable small and medium- size enterprises to install a SAN quickly, in most cases under an hour, without on-site assistance. The kits, available in 2Gb/s or 4Gb/s Fibre Channel configurations, include all the hardware and software necessary to connect servers to a first SAN or to extend a SAN from the data center to a distant workgroup. Additionally, the AMS and WMS systems can be provisioned directly from Microsoft Windows.