SyQuest Technology, Inc., now known as
SYQT, Inc., was an early entrant into the removable
hard diskA hard disk drive is a non-volatile storage device that stores digitally encoded data on rapidly rotating platters with magnetic surfaces. Strictly speaking, "drive" refers to the motorized mechanical aspect that is distinct from its medium, such as a tape drive and its tape, or a floppy disk...
market for personal computers. The company was started in 1982 by
Syed IftikarSyed Iftikar founded the SyQuest Technology company in 1982. He had worked at Seagate previous to founding SyQuest....
; it was named partially after himself because of a company meeting wherein it was decided that "SyQuest" ought to be a shortened name for "Sy's Quest". Its earliest products were 3.9" (100mm) removable hard drives, and 3.9" (100mm) ruggedized hard drives for IBM XT compatibles and military applications.
SyQuest Technology, Inc., now known as
SYQT, Inc., was an early entrant into the removable
hard diskA hard disk drive is a non-volatile storage device that stores digitally encoded data on rapidly rotating platters with magnetic surfaces. Strictly speaking, "drive" refers to the motorized mechanical aspect that is distinct from its medium, such as a tape drive and its tape, or a floppy disk...
market for personal computers. The company was started in 1982 by
Syed IftikarSyed Iftikar founded the SyQuest Technology company in 1982. He had worked at Seagate previous to founding SyQuest....
; it was named partially after himself because of a company meeting wherein it was decided that "SyQuest" ought to be a shortened name for "Sy's Quest". Its earliest products were 3.9" (100mm) removable hard drives, and 3.9" (100mm) ruggedized hard drives for IBM XT compatibles and military applications. Some of their early fixed drives appear to be rebranded
SeagateSeagate may refer to:*Seagate Technology, a manufacturer of computer hard disks*Seagate, Brooklyn, a community in Brooklyn, New York City, USA*Seagate, North Carolina, a community in North Carolina, USA* One Seagate, the tallest building in Ohio...
drives, especially when one compares the drive lists on
this data recovery site with this
product table.
For many years SyQuest held the market, particularly as a method of transferring large
desktop publisherDesktop publishing combines a personal computer and WYSIWYG page layout software to create publication documents on a computer for either large scale publishing or small scale local multifunction peripheral output and distribution....
documents to
printerA printer is a company that provides commercial printing services, often also offering typesetting and book-binding services. The term can also refer to people who operate printing presses, or who run printing companies....
s. SyQuest aim their products to give personal computer users "endless" hard drive space for data-intensive applications like desktop publishing, Internet information management, pre-press,
multimediaMultimedia is media and content that uses a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media which only use traditional forms of printed or hand-produced material...
,
audioSound is a travelling wave which is an oscillation of pressure transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a level sufficiently strong to be heard, or the sensation stimulated in organs of hearing by such vibrations.- Perception of sound...
,
videoVideo is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.-History:...
,
digital photographyDigital photography is a form of photography that uses digital technology to make images of subjects. Until the advent of such technology, photography used photographic film to create images which could be made visible by photographic processing...
, fast
backupIn information technology, a backup or the process of backing up refer to making copies of data so that these additional copies may be used to restore the original after a data loss event...
, data exchange, archiving, confidential data security and easy portability for the road.
In the years since 1995 they have not fared as well in the market, while
IomegaIomega is a producer of consumer external, portable and networking storage hardware. Established in the 1980s, Iomega has sold more than 400 million digital storage drives and disks...
cornered the Small Office/Home Office (
SOHOSoho is an area in the centre of the West End of London, England, in the City of Westminster. It is an entertainment district which for much of the later part of the 20th century had a reputation for its sex shops as well as its night life and film industry...
) market. Over the period 1995 to 1997 sales declined resulting in a series of losses. In the first quarter of 1997 these losses had been reduced to $6.8 million with net revenues increasing to $48.3 million. This compares to a net loss of $33.8 million, or $2.98 per share, on net revenues of $78.7 million for the same period the year before.
SyQuest filed for bankruptcy in late 1998, and portions of the company were subsequently purchased by
IomegaIomega is a producer of consumer external, portable and networking storage hardware. Established in the 1980s, Iomega has sold more than 400 million digital storage drives and disks...
Corp. in January, 1999. SyQuest retained the rights to sell their remaining inventory, on condition of renaming themselves as SYQT in order to continue operations. For several subsequent years, a web site at www.SYQT.com sold disk drives and media, and provided software downloads in support of those products. As of 2009-01-22, this web site has ceased to exist and has been replaced by a traffic redirection page.
A significant reason for the losses was due to quality issues with a series of products, including the SparQ Drive, that caused a large number of the drives to malfunction within just a few months of initial operation.
Syquest's product line included such devices as the following:
(The 5.25" removable cartridge drives with 44MB, 88MB, and 200MB capacities were mostly used on Macintosh systems via the SCSI interface.)
- SQ306RD drive/SQ100 cartridge. 5mb using MFM
Modified Frequency Modulation, commonly MFM, is a line coding scheme used to encode the actual data-bits on most floppy disk formats, hardware examples include Amiga, most CP/M machines as well as IBM PC compatibles. Early harddiscs also used this coding....
encoding.
- SQ312RD drive/SQ200 cartridge (SyQuest used the SQ200 model number again for a desktop drive in 1994). 10mb using MFM
Modified Frequency Modulation, commonly MFM, is a line coding scheme used to encode the actual data-bits on most floppy disk formats, hardware examples include Amiga, most CP/M machines as well as IBM PC compatibles. Early harddiscs also used this coding....
encoding.
- SQ319RD drive/SQ300 cartridge. 15mb using RLL
Run length limited or RLL coding is a line coding technique that is used to send arbitrary data over a communications channel with bandwidth limits. This is used in both telecommunication and storage systems which move a medium past a fixed head. Specifically, RLL bounds the length of stretches ...
encoding (10mb using MFMModified Frequency Modulation, commonly MFM, is a line coding scheme used to encode the actual data-bits on most floppy disk formats, hardware examples include Amiga, most CP/M machines as well as IBM PC compatibles. Early harddiscs also used this coding....
encoding).
- SQ325F fixed drive. 25MB using MFM
Modified Frequency Modulation, commonly MFM, is a line coding scheme used to encode the actual data-bits on most floppy disk formats, hardware examples include Amiga, most CP/M machines as well as IBM PC compatibles. Early harddiscs also used this coding....
encoding. Specs: 612 cylinders, 4 heads, no WPC, no RWC, fastest step rate.
- SQ338F fixed drive. 38MB. Supported MFM
Modified Frequency Modulation, commonly MFM, is a line coding scheme used to encode the actual data-bits on most floppy disk formats, hardware examples include Amiga, most CP/M machines as well as IBM PC compatibles. Early harddiscs also used this coding....
or RLLRun length limited or RLL coding is a line coding technique that is used to send arbitrary data over a communications channel with bandwidth limits. This is used in both telecommunication and storage systems which move a medium past a fixed head. Specifically, RLL bounds the length of stretches ...
encoding. Specs: 615 cylinders, 6 heads, no WPC, no RWC, fastest step rate.
- SQ2542 drive/cartridge - 42MB 2.5" The Iota series.
- SQ555 drive/SQ400 cartridge - 44MB 5.25". internal SCSI. SQ5110 and SQ5200C compatible. Also sold as part of the E-mu Systems RM45 - Removable Media Storage System.
- SQ5110 drive/SQ800 cartridge - 88MB 5.25". internal SCSI. SQ5200C compatible
- SQ5200C drive/SQ2000 cartridge - 200MB 5.25" internal SCSI. The external desktop version of the SQ5200C was named SQ200, not to be confused with the earlier model SQ200 44MB cartridges. The earlier model SQ200 44MB and SQ800 88MB cartridges could also be used in the SQ5200C internal/SQ200 external drive.
- SQ3105 drive/SQ310 cartridge - 105MB. SQ3270 compatible.
- SQ3270 drive/SQ327 cartridge - 270MB.
- EZ135 aka EZDrive 135/EZ135 cartridge - 135MB 3.5" removable cartridge drive. Competitor to Iomega's Zip drive
The Zip drive is a medium-capacity removable disk storage system, introduced by Iomega in late 1994. Originally, Zip disks launched with capacities of only 100 MB, but later versions increased this to first 250 MB and then 750 MB....
. This was available in both SCSI and parallel port versions.
- EZFlyer aka EZFlyer 230 drive/EZ230 cartridge - 230MB 3.5" removable cartridge drive. EZ135 compatible. Positioned as an upgrade to the EZ135.
- SyJet drive/SQ1500 cartridge - 1.5GB removable cartridge drive. Competitor to Iomega's Jaz drive
The Jaz drive was a removable disk storage system, introduced by the Iomega company in 1995. The system has since been discontinued.The Jaz disks were originally released with a 1 GB capacity in a 3½-inch form factor, which was a significant increase over Iomega's most popular product at the time,...
).
- SparQ drive/SparQ cartridge - 1.0GB 3.5" removable cartridge drive. Lower cost per MB than the SyJet.
- Quest drive/Quest disc - a 4.7GB removable hard drive. Press release. PC Magazine definition. Available for a short time 1998.
External links