Exabyte Corporation was a manufacturer of

magnetic tape data storage Magnetic-tape data storage is a system for storing digital information on magnetic tape using digital recording. Tape was an important medium for primary data storage in early computers, typically using large open reels of IBM 7 track, 7-track, ...

products headquartered in

Boulder, Colorado Boulder is a home rule city that is the county seat and most populous municipality of Boulder County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 108,250 at the 2020 United States census, making it the 12th most populous city in Color ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. Exabyte Corp. is now defunct, but the company's technology is sold by

Tandberg Data Tandberg Data GmbH is a company focused on data storage products, especially streamers, headquartered in Dortmund, Germany. They are the only company still selling drives that use the QIC (also known as SLR) and VXA formats, but also produce ...

under both brand names. Prior to the 2006 demise, Exabyte offered tape storage and automation solutions for

server Server may refer to: Computing *Server (computing), a computer program or a device that provides functionality for other programs or devices, called clients Role * Waiting staff, those who work at a restaurant or a bar attending customers and su ...

workstation A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems. The term ''workstat ...

s, LANs and SANs. Exabyte is best known for introducing the

Data8 The 8 mm backup format is a magnetic tape data storage format used in computer systems, pioneered by Exabyte Corporation. It is also known as Data8, often abbreviated to D8 and is written as D-Eight on some Sony branded media. Such systems ...

(8 mm) magnetic tape format in 1987. At the time of its demise, Exabyte manufactured

VXA VXA is a tape backup format originally created by Ecrix and now owned by Tandberg Data. After the merger between Ecrix and Exabyte on 17 November 2001, VXA was produced by Exabyte Corporation. On November 20, 2006, Exabyte was purchased by Tandber ...

and LTO based products. The company controlled VXA technology but did not play a large role in the LTO community.

Corporate history

The company was formed in 1985 by Juan Rodriguez, Harry Hinz, and Kelly Beavers, and a group of ex-

StorageTek Storage Technology Corporation (StorageTek or STK, earlier STC) was a data storage technology company headquartered in Louisville, Colorado. New products include data retention systems, which it calls "information lifecycle management" (ILM). It ...

engineers who were interested in using consumer

videotape Videotape is magnetic tape used for storing video and usually sound in addition. Information stored can be in the form of either an analog or digital signal. Videotape is used in both video tape recorders (VTRs) and, more commonly, videocassett ...

technology for data storage. The company advanced technology for computer

backup In information technology, a backup, or data backup is a copy of computer data taken and stored elsewhere so that it may be used to restore the original after a data loss event. The verb form, referring to the process of doing so, is "back up", w ...

s in 1987 when they introduced the

magnetic tape format. The company's follow-up technologies, including Mammoth and Mammoth-2, were less successful. Exabyte went public on the NASDAQ in 1989 under the symbol EXBT.

Acquisitions

Exabyte's history of acquisitions includes: * 1992 - R-Byte, Inc., a maker of

4mm 4 mm may refer to: * 4 mm caliber, gun cartridges between 4–5 mm diameter * 4 mm scale, in rail transport modelling, 1:76.2 scale with rails 16.5 mm apart, representing standard gauge in Britain {{Letter-Number Combination Disambiguation ...

tape systems. * 1993 -

Tallgrass Technologies Tallgrass Technologies Corporation was the first manufacturer to offer a hard disk drive product for the IBM PC. Tallgrass was a Kansas City based microcomputer hardware and software company founded in December 1980 by David M. Allen. The hard d ...

Lenexa Lenexa is a city in Johnson County, Kansas, United States. It is one of four principal cities of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area and 9th most populated city of Kansas. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 57,434. It is th ...

within

Johnson County, Kansas Johnson County is a county in the U.S. state of Kansas, on the border with Missouri. As of the 2020 census, the population was 609,863, making it the most populous county in Kansas. Its county seat is Olathe. Largely suburban, the county conta ...

. Tallgrass manufactured 4mm DDS drives, backup software, and had a significant distribution channel. * 1993 -

Everex Everex ("Ever for Excellence!") is a defunct American manufacturer of desktop and notebook personal computers. It was established in 1983 and headquartered in Fremont, California. The company was founded by Steve Hui, John Lee and Wayne Cheung ...

's ''Mass Storage Division'' (MSD). Everex did its research and development in

Ann Arbor, MI Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County. The 2020 census recorded its population to be 123,851. It is the principal city of the Ann Arbor Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all o ...

and manufactured its products in

Fremont, CA Fremont is a city in Alameda County, California, United States. Located in the East Bay region of the Bay Area, Fremont has a population of 230,504 as of 2020, making it the fourth most populous city in the Bay Area, behind San Jose, San Fran ...

. Everex MSD made QIC products. * October 1994 -

Grundig Data Scanner GmbH Grundig (; ) is a German consumer electronics manufacturer owned by the Turkish Arçelik A.Ş., the white goods (major appliance) manufacturer of Turkish conglomerate Koç Holding. The company made domestic appliances and personal-care produc ...

, for $2.9 million and renamed ''Exabyte Magnetics GmbH''. This subsidiary designed and manufactured

helical scan Helical scan is a method of recording high-frequency signals on magnetic tape. It is used in open-reel video tape recorders, video cassette recorders, digital audio tape recorders, and some computer tape drives. History Earl E Masterson from ...

tape head A tape head is a type of transducer used in tape recorders to convert electrical signals to magnetic fluctuations and vice versa. They can also be used to read credit/debit/gift cards because the strip of magnetic tape on the back of a credit card ...

Ecrix merger

was a

company founded in 1996 in

. The founders, Kelly Beavers and Juan Rodriguez, were two of the three founders of Exabyte. The research and development done by Ecrix focused on making a cheaper 8 mm tape drive. In 1999, Ecrix released their first product, the

tape drive. In 2001, Ecrix and Exabyte merged, giving Exabyte access to Ecrix's VXA Packet Technology tape drive format.

Demise

* On 30 June 2006, Exabyte announced that they were looking for a buyer. * On 30 August 2006,

announced that they were buying Exabyte's assets for US$28 million. * The acquisition was completed on 20 November 2006.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Overland-Tandberg homepage

Companies established in 1985 Companies disestablished in 2006 1985 establishments in Colorado 2006 disestablishments in Colorado