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LOUISVILLE, Colo. -- StorageTek customers have long touted the benefits of StorageTek's premier T9X40 tape drive family. Known for both performance and capacity, StorageTek tape drives have been the top customer choice in a high-performance computing environment. And according to a new independent analyst report by Gartner Dataquest, StorageTek is at the top for shipments in the high-end half-inch cartridge tape drives market. StorageTek(R) (Storage Technology Corp.), (NYSE:STK) , the storage services and solutions expert, today cited accelerated market penetration and increased market share in the high-end/half-inch cartridge tape drive market, following recent independent analyst validation. According to a report issued in March 2003 by Gartner Dataquest, titled "Tape Drive Market Shares, 2002," StorageTek's market share in the high-end tape drive (half-inch cartridge) category increased from 55.8 percent in 2001 to 61.8 percent in 2002, growing by 6 percent overall. During this same time frame, StorageTek grew its factory revenue share of this segment by 11 percent. Included in this tape drive category are IBM's Magstar 3590 tape drives, 3480/3490 compatible tape drives from NEC, Fujitsu and StorageTek's own T9840 and T9940. "Our continued year-over-year growth and clear leadership in this market segment is a testament to the power and value of our T9840 and T9940 family of tape drives," said Gary Francis, StorageTek corporate vice president and general manager, Automated Tape Solutions. "Customers look to StorageTek's industry-leading breadth of tape drives and libraries for maximum reliability, performance and return on investment. We anticipate that the demand for these products will continue to grow as we introduce new enhancements, connectivity options and support in the months ahead." StorageTek's T9840 "access-centric" tape drives feature superior speed and access capabilities, making it the ideal tape drive solution for transaction- intensive, time critical applications and HSM. The T9940 "capacity-centric" tape drive offers massive capacity and throughput for archiving, backup, record retention and disaster recovery. Both products set the standard for reliability and performance in their class.