Dot Hill Secures Six New Patents, Bolstering Heritage as a Trailblazer in Storage...

Dot Hill Secures Six New Patents, Bolstering Heritage as a Trailblazer in
Storage Innovation

CARLSBAD, Calif., June 24 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Dot Hill Systems Corp.
(Nasdaq: HILL), a world-class provider of entry-level and midrange storage
solutions for OEMs and system integrators (SIs), today demonstrated its
continued focus on technology innovation, with the announcement of six new
patents granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Developed by Dot Hill'sLongmont, Colo. engineering team, these latest
innovations are part of the company's growing patent portfolio. Dot Hill has
been awarded 48 patents to date. Dot Hill's dedication to technology helps
give its growing list of OEMs a competitive edge in delivering innovative high
performance storage solutions.

The newest patents granted to Dot Hill include:
-- U.S. patent 7,536,495 "Certified memory-to-memory data transfer
between active-active RAID controllers" -- This patent provides for
improved communication efficiency and reliability between redundant
RAID
controllers. By using a robust, efficient protocol for transferring
data and controlling information, this innovation eliminates delays in
write-cache synchronization and preserves CPU processing bandwidth for
other tasks.
-- U.S. Patent 7,536,506 "RAID controller using capacitor energy
source to flush volatile cache data to non-volatile memory during main
power outage" -- This invention provides a super capacitor energy
source for RAID controllers. The super capacitor stores sufficient
energy to guarantee that volatile write-data is safely transferred to
non-volatile memory in the event that the main power is lost. Once the
data is stored in the non-volatile memory, the RAID controller may
remain unpowered indefinitely without losing any data. Super capacitor
technology has significant advantages over older battery technologies,
such as improved energy density, faster charge time, and significantly
longer shelf life.
-- U.S. Patent 7,536,508 "System and method for sharing SATA drives in
an active-active RAID controller system" -- This innovation
provides a method for efficiently sharing Serial ATA (SATA) drives in
an
active-active RAID system including one or more Serial Attached SCSI
(SAS) expanders and a communications link between the first and second
RAID controllers. An ownership protocol between redundant RAID
controllers communicates ownership status and changes for each SATA
drive in the RAID system. In the event of a failure by a redundant
RAID
controller, ownership is seamlessly transferred to another RAID
controller.
-- U.S. Patent 7,536,584 "Fault-isolating SAS Expander" -- This
invention provides an intelligent Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) expander
that automatically detects faulty communications on one of its links
and
isolates the fault by disabling a physical interface within the SAS
expander. Upon reporting the disablement, the intelligent SAS expander
recovers by taking corrective action and re-enabling the physical
interface.
-- U.S. Patent 7,543,096 "Safe message transfers on PCI-Express link
from RAID controller to receiver-programmable window of partner RAID
controller CPU memory" - This patent provides for reliable
intercommunication between redundant RAID controllers in a
high-availability storage system to ensure the correct user-data is
written to the disk drives. A RAID controller defines a window in the
memory of a redundant RAID controller for writing information, and if
any write-addresses are outside the specified window, the receiving
controller will not write the data. This can prevent inadvertent data
corruption in RAID controller memory by not allowing received data to
overwrite unrelated data that needs to be preserved.
-- U.S. Patent 7,539,799 "Method and apparatus for identifying
enclosures and devices" --This invention provides automatic
assignment of unique IDs to enclosures that can be used to identify
and
determine the exact location of the enclosure in the data storage
system.

"Our Longmont, Colo., team continues to expand its patent portfolio with
technology innovations that we believe translate to a competitive advantage
for our OEMs and other customers," said Jim Kuenzel, senior vice president of
Engineering for Dot Hill. "We continue to seek smart solutions to keep pace
with the ever-changing landscape of storage challenges faced by OEMs,
resellers and IT professionals."

Dot Hill R/Evolution Storage Architecture Gives OEMs a Competitive Advantage
The highly modular, highly dynamic Dot Hill R/Evolution Architecture is
designed to rapidly evolve and support OEM technology, enabling OEMs to
quickly achieve sustainable competitive advantage in the volume storage
market. The R/Evolution Architecture delivers the high levels of performance,
storage density, time-to-market leadership and -- most importantly --
configuration flexibility required by volume storage customers. Using modular
and bladed components, the R/Evolution Architecture provides OEMs with a
"configure-to-product" model (not just "configure-to-order") that lets them
customize volume storage market solutions quickly, easily and precisely. This
unique model revolutionizes how OEMs bring storage products to market by
ensuring opportunities for product differentiation, even between different
companies that simultaneously OEM products from Dot Hill.

About Dot Hill
Delivering innovative technology and global support, Dot Hill empowers the OEM
community to bring unique storage solutions to market, quickly, easily and
cost-effectively. Offering high performance and industry-leading uptime, Dot
Hill's RAID technology is the foundation for best-in-class storage solutions
offering enterprise-class security, availability and data protection. The
company's products are in use today by the world's leading service and
equipment providers, common carriers, advanced technology and
telecommunications companies as well as government agencies. Dot Hill
solutions are certified to meet rigorous industry standards and military
specifications, as well as RoHS and WEEE international environmental
standards. Headquartered in Carlsbad, Calif., Dot Hill has offices and/or
representatives in China, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom and the United
States.

For more information, visit us at http://www.dothill.com/.

HILL-G

Certain statements contained in this press release regarding matters that are
not historical fact are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the
Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. Because such statements are subject
to risks and uncertainties, actual results may differ materially from those
expressed or implied by such statements. Forward-looking statements include
the availability and performance of current or future Dot Hill product
features based on the patented technology described in this press release, any
competitive advantage that the patent technology provides to Dot Hill, any
positive effect on Dot Hill's financial results due to the issuance of a Dot
Hill patent, and Dot Hill's ability to continue to receive patent protection
on current or future technology. The risks that contribute to the uncertain
nature of the forward-looking statements include: any unforeseen
technological, intellectual property, supply or engineering issues, and
changing customer preferences. However, there are many other risks not listed
here that may affect the future business of Dot Hill, as well as the
forward-looking statements contained herein. To learn about such risks and
uncertainties, you should read the risk factors set forth in Dot Hill's public
filings with the SEC, including the Forms 8-K, 10-K and 10-Q most recently
filed by Dot Hill. All forward-looking statements contained in this press
release speak only as the date on which they were made. Dot Hill undertakes no
obligation to update such statements to reflect later events or circumstances.

SOURCE Dot Hill Systems Corp.

Erin Lutz of Lutz PR, +1-949-293-1055, erinlutz@cox.net, for Dot Hill Systems
Corp.; or Ruth Macdonald, Marketing Communications Manager of Dot Hill Systems
Corp., +1-720-839-6614, ruth.macdonald@dothill.com