SyQuest 3.5-inch disk (105/270MB) (1993 - 1998) | Museum of Obsolete Media (original) (raw)
The SyQuest 105MB cartridge (SQ310) was introduced in Spring 1993, and was a removable rigid-disc data storage format with a 3.5-inch form factor, for use with IBM-compatible PCs and Macs. Later in the year, a 270 MB version (SQ327) was introduced.
Neither of the discs were compatible with previous SyQuest disc formats, nor with the 3.5-inch EZ135 and EZFlyer that followed them. The 270 MB drives can read and write to the 105 MB cartridges, but cannot format them.
SyQuest discs were popular for graphic arts, desktop publishing and CAD, with more than a million units sold by 1994. However, because of the huge installed base of the SyQuest 5.25-inch drives, the 3.5-inch cartridge formats were not as successful despite being faster than other backup solutions such as tape drives and Bernoulli disks.