SyQuest Technology

SyQuest Technology
Company typePublic
IndustryData storage
Founded1982; 42 years ago (1982) in Fremont, California, United States
Founder
  • Syed Iftikar
  • Ben Alaimo
  • Bill Krajewski
  • Anil Nigam
  • George Toldi
Defunct2003 (2003)
FatePartially acquired by Iomega

SyQuest Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: SYQT)[1] was an early entrant into the hard disk drive market for personal computers. The company was founded on January 27, 1982 [2] by Syed Iftikar who had been a founder of Seagate,[3] along with Ben Alaimo, Bill Krajewski, Anil Nigam and George Toldi.[4] Its earliest products were the SQ306R, a 5 MB 3.9" (100 mm) cartridge disk drive and associated Q-Pak cartridge for IBM XT compatibles.[5] Subsequently a non-removable medium version was announced, the SQ306F.[6]

For many years, SyQuest was the most popular means of transferring large desktop publisher documents such as advertisements to professional printers. SyQuest marketed its 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, fast backup, data exchange and archiving, along with confidential data security and easy portability for the road.

  1. ^ "Troubled SyQuest Technology suspends its operations". The New York Times. November 4, 1998.
  2. ^ http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/syquest/brochures/SyQuest_Background198311xx.pdf [bare URL PDF]
  3. ^ "Sy's quest". Forbes. 9 December 1997. Retrieved 5 July 2010.
  4. ^ "SyQuest SQ306 Q100, 1982" (PDF).
  5. ^ Roman, Andrew (June 1982). "3.9-in. Winchester features removable media". Mini Micro Systems: 239–244.
  6. ^ "SQ306F, SQ312F, SQ325F Data Sheet" (PDF).