SyQuest Technology
Encyclopedia
Hard disk
A hard disk drive is a non-volatile, random access digital magnetic data storage device. It features rotating rigid platters on a motor-driven spindle within a protective enclosure. Data is magnetically read from and written to the platter by read/write heads that float on a film of air above the...
market for personal computers. The company was started in 1982 by Syed Iftikar
Syed Iftikar
Syed Iftikar founded the SyQuest Technology company in 1982. He had worked at Seagate previous to founding SyQuest.-References:...
; 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 Seagate
Seagate Technology
Seagate Technology is one of the world's largest manufacturers of hard disk drives. Incorporated in 1978 as Shugart Technology, Seagate is currently incorporated in Dublin, Ireland and has its principal executive offices in Scotts Valley, California, United States.-1970s:On November 1, 1979...
drives, especially when one compares the drive lists on this data recovery site with this product table.
For many years SyQuest was the most popular means of transferring large desktop publisher
Desktop publishing
Desktop publishing is the creation of documents using page layout software on a personal computer.The term has been used for publishing at all levels, from small-circulation documents such as local newsletters to books, magazines and newspapers...
documents to printer
Printer (publisher)
In publishing, printers are both companies providing printing services and individuals who directly operate printing presses. With the invention of the moveable type printing press by Johannes Gutenberg around 1450, printing—and printers—proliferated throughout Europe.Today, printers are found...
s. SyQuest marketed their products as able to give personal computer users "endless" hard drive space for data-intensive applications like desktop publishing, Internet information management, pre-press, multimedia, audio, video, digital photography
Digital photography
Digital photography is a form of photography that uses an array of light sensitive sensors to capture the image focused by the lens, as opposed to an exposure on light sensitive film...
, fast backup, data exchange and archiving, along with confidential data security and easy portability for the road.
History
After 1995 they did not fare well in the market. SyQuest's core desktop publishing customers began increasingly to use CD-RCD-R
A CD-R is a variation of the Compact Disc invented by Philips and Sony. CD-R is a Write Once Read Many optical medium, though the whole disk does not have to be entirely written in the same session....
media and FTP to transfer files, while Iomega
Iomega
Iomega is an American producer of consumer external, portable and networking storage hardware. Established in the 1980s, Iomega has sold more than 410 million digital storage drives and disks. On April 8, 2008, EMC Corporation announced its plans to acquire Iomega for a consideration of US $213M...
's Zip drive
Zip drive
The Zip drive is a medium-capacity removable disk storage system that was introduced by Iomega in late 1994. Originally, Zip disks launched with capacities of 100 MB, but later versions increased this to first 250 MB and then 750 MB....
s dominated the Small Office/Home Office
Small office/home office
Small office/home office, or SOHO, refers to the category of business or cottage industry which involves from 1 to 10 workers. SOHO can also stand for single office/home office....
(SOHO) market. Over the period 1995 to 1997 sales declined, resulting in a series of losses. In the first quarter of 1997 those 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 Iomega
Iomega
Iomega is an American producer of consumer external, portable and networking storage hardware. Established in the 1980s, Iomega has sold more than 410 million digital storage drives and disks. On April 8, 2008, EMC Corporation announced its plans to acquire Iomega for a consideration of US $213M...
Corp. in January, 1999. SyQuest retained the rights to sell their remaining inventory, on condition of renaming themselves 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 January 22, 2009, that Web site ceased to exist.
A significant reason for the losses was due to quality issues with a series of products, including the SparQ Drive and SyJet drives, that caused a large number of the drives to malfunction within just a few months of initial operation. Many users were frustrated at the lack of backwards compatibility as disk capacity increased. The life expectancy of a SyQuest disk was uncertain, as high usage could sometimes contribute to failure. The relative ease of use and inexpensive media of Iomega's Zip disks led to SyQuest's quick demise by the end of the 1990s.
Products
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 MFMModified Frequency ModulationModified 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 hard disk drives also used this coding.MFM is a modification to the original...
encoding. - SQ312RD drive/SQ200 cartridge (SyQuest used the SQ200 model number again for a desktop drive in 1994). 10mb using MFM encoding.
- SQ319RD drive/SQ300 cartridge. 15mb using RLLRun Length LimitedRun 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 MFM encoding). - SQ325F fixed drive. 25MB using MFM encoding. Specs: 612 cylinders, 4 heads, no WPC, no RWC, fastest step rate.
- SQ338F fixed drive. 38MB. Supported MFM or RLL 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. Also used in the Atari Megafile 44 (Review in Atari Start Magazine March 1990) and sold as part of the E-mu Systems RM45 - Removable Media Storage System.
- SQ5110 drive/SQ800 cartridge - 88MB 5.25". internal SCSI. Compatible with SQ400 Cartridge.
- 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. Compatible with SQ400 and SQ800 Cartridges.
- SQ3105 drive/SQ310 cartridge - 105MB.
- SQ3270 drive/SQ327 cartridge - 270MB. Compatible with SQ310 cartridge.
- EZ135 aka EZDrive 135/EZ135 cartridge - 135MB 3.5" removable cartridge drive. Competitor to Iomega's Zip driveZip driveThe Zip drive is a medium-capacity removable disk storage system that was introduced by Iomega in late 1994. Originally, Zip disks launched with capacities of 100 MB, but later versions increased this to first 250 MB and then 750 MB....
. This was available in SCSI, IDE 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 driveJaz driveThe 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
- http://computing-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Syquest
- Interview Syed Iftikar (SyQuest member)