Datacenter Automation

NEWARK, CA and PHOENIX, AZ -- (Marketwire) -- 02/24/12 -- SMART Storage Systems, an innovative and rapidly emerging SSD technology provider, and Avnet Electronics Marketing, an operating group of Avnet, Inc. (NYSE: AVT) and a global distributor of electronic components, enterprise computing and storage products, and embedded systems, today announced that they have expanded their global distribution relationship. The Avnet Memec and Avnet Embedded divisions of Avnet Electronics Marketing will now distribute SMART Storage Systems' Xceed solid-state drive (SSD) product lines to its customers worldwide. Production quantities of the XceedIOPS, XceedIOPS 2 and XceedStor 500S SSDs are now available.

"Our customers are constantly looking for ways to improve their ability to process and serve data," said Joe Cousins, Vice President of marketing for Avnet Embedded. "Our relationship with SMART Storage Systems not only broadens our product portfolio, but enables us to address this need head-on for our customers."

Avnet is one of the world's largest distributors of technology solutions, serving more than 100,000 customers globally. As part of the relationship, SMART Storage Systems' Xceed products will be leveraged in a range of embedded solutions throughout the Avnet Embedded division. In addition, SMART Storage Systems' Xceed product line will be offered through semiconductor specialist Avnet Memec, enabling Avnet Memec and SMART's customers to design products leveraging the industry-leading performance, reliability and endurance of the Xceed product families.

Designed for varying enterprise applications, the SMART Storage Systems XceedIOPS, XceedIOPS2 and XceedStor 500S products offer a powerful combination of performance, reliability, and endurance. The XceedIOPS is available in capacities up to 400GB and supports up to seven full drive writes per day. The XceedIOPS is also the only SandForce-based SSD qualified by Tier 1 OEMs across multiple platforms. Delivering double the performance of the XceedIOPS via the SATA 6Gb/s interface, the XceedIOPS2 takes advantage of enterprise multi-level cell (eMLC) flash and a robust enterprise feature set to meet enterprise storage application needs. The XceedStor 500S is a cost effective, server-grade SSD that delivers industry-leading read performance and reliability for enterprise server applications.

"Enterprise organizations cannot afford to have bottlenecks in their storage infrastructure," said John Scaramuzzo, President of SMART Storage Systems. "SSDs overcome the performance bottlenecks commonly found in environments that utilize traditional hard drives, enabling true, real-time delivery of data. Our relationship with Avnet broadens the reach of our industry-leading Xceed SSDs, enabling us to solve enterprise storage issues worldwide."

For more information about SMART Storage Systems, please visit the company's website at http://www.smartstoragesys.com, the company's blog at http://www.smartstorageblog.com, or find us on Twitter at @SMARTSSD.

About Avnet Electronics Marketing
Avnet Electronics Marketing is an operating group of Phoenix-based Avnet, Inc. that serves electronic original equipment manufacturers (EOEMs) and electronic manufacturing services (EMS) providers in more than 70 countries, distributing electronic components from leading manufacturers and providing associated design-chain and supply-chain services. The group's website is located at www.em.avnet.com.

About Avnet, Inc.
Avnet, Inc. (NYSE: AVT), a Fortune 500 company, is one of the largest distributors of electronic components, computer products and embedded technology serving customers in more than 70 countries worldwide. Avnet accelerates its partners' success by connecting the world's leading technology suppliers with a broad base of more than 100,000 customers by providing cost-effective, value-added services and solutions. For the fiscal year ended July 2, 2011, Avnet generated revenue of $26.5 billion. For more information, visit www.avnet.com.

About SMART Storage Systems
SMART Storage Systems is a technology leader in the design, development and deployment of current and next-generation enterprise solid-state storage products. Combining leading-edge, enterprise-class design, and proven world-class support, SMART Storage Systems leverages its deep expertise in flash and enterprise storage technology. SMART Storage Systems delivers high-quality, high-reliability solutions to a broad customer base, including tier one storage and server OEMs. In support of these designs, SMART Storage Systems provides award-winning innovations in solid-state storage technology, such as NAND high-endurance Guardian™ technology, to a variety of customers in the enterprise storage, enterprise server, data center, defense and industrial markets. SMART Storage Systems is part of the SMART family of global companies. See www.smartstoragesys.com for more information.

About SMART Worldwide Holdings
The SMART family of global companies are leading designers, manufacturers and suppliers of electronic subsystems for the most demanding OEMs around the world. The SMART companies have led the way over the past 23 years providing standard and custom products to today's leading global OEMs crossing all major electronic industries. These industries include PC, enterprise and industrial servers, networking, telecom, defense, aerospace, gaming and embedded application markets. Taking innovations from the design stage through manufacturing and delivery, SMART Modular Technologies has developed a comprehensive memory product line that includes DRAM, SRAM and Flash memory in various form factors. SMART Storage Systems offers high-performance, high-capacity SSDs for enterprise, defense, aerospace, industrial automation, medical and transportation markets. SMART's presence in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Latin America enables it to provide its customers with proven expertise in international logistics, asset management and supply-chain management worldwide. See www.smartm.com for more information.