SyQuest Technology
 | |
| Type | Public |
|---|---|
| Nasdaq: SYQT | |
| Industry | Data storage |
| Founded | 1982 in Fremont, California, United States |
| Founder |
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| Defunct | 2003 |
| Fate | Partially acquired by Iomega |
| Website | syquest.com at the Wayback Machine (archived 1997-07-14) |
SyQuest Technology, Inc. was an early entrant into the hard disk drive market for personal computers. 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. Subsequently a non-removable medium version was announced, the SQ306F.
For many years, SyQuest was the most popular means of transferring large desktop publishing 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.
The introduction of lower-cost options that offered similar capacity, like the Zip drive and later the CD-R, the latter of which was much less expensive once it reached mass market, seriously eroded SyQuest's sales, and the company went bankrupt in 1998. Sales of its existing inventory continued until 2003.