It’s been a long, strange trip for Overland Storage. Best known in recent years for the tape backup libraries it sold through Hewlett-Packard, Overland is in the midst of an iSCSI-focused renovation at the hands of former Snap Appliance and Data Robotics execs. Could this reboot breathe new life into Overland as well as the SMB storage market it is focused on?

EMC (NYSE:EMC) started a gunfight in the storage world today by offering an astonishing $1.8 billion for data deduplication sweetheart, Data Domain (NASDAQ:DDUP). This $30 per share offer one-ups rival NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) by $5 per share, which looked to have sealed the deal with a solid $1.5 billion offer on May 20. EMC’s offer is all-cash, while NetApp had mixed cash and stock.