Overland Storage today launched an upgrade for the entry-level REO series of disk-based backup and virtual tape library systems.

The new REO 1500, which takes the place of the 1000 series box, sports a five-times faster performance boost than its predecessor - from 20Mbps to 100Mbps - as well as snappier restores of up to 2TB of data. No word on if or when the REO 4000 or 9000 will receive similar arithmetic to their names, but Overland promises "pending product announcements".

The new box runs on a 2.93 GHz Intel Celeron processor and includes a 3Ware SATA RAID controller, a 512MB IDE flash disk, while supporting four 250 GB and 500 GB SATA drives. The number of VTLs supported have been increased from four to six, and virtual cartridges have been boosted from 180 to 512. Version 4.0 of Overland's REO Protection OS is included in the 1500's 1U base unit.

The package has iSCSI connectivity, RAID 5 data protection and HTTPS secure management for remote monitoring. The REO 1500 is available worldwide now starting at $5,543.

Overland has been forced to be more of loner in the entry- to mid-level backup game after Dell dropped a tie-up deal last October when it failed to ship the gear in time. The company also received a similar kick in the pants from HP early last year. ®

• Nasdaq threatens Overland with de-listing (6 October 2008)
• Overland snatches Adaptec's Snap Server biz (30 June 2008)
• IBM launches virtual tape offensive (10 July 2007)
• Finance sector still the disk backup leader (5 July 2007)
• Overland feels overstaffed (20 April 2007)
• Xyratex to vendors: dense RAID is 4U (9 April 2007)
• Dell kills Overland storage tie-up (13 October 2006)
• Overland tinkles the Bell (Micro) (16 August 2006)
• Overland Storage romances resellers (2 March 2006)
• HP sends Overland overboard (3 August 2005)