Kalok

Kalok Corporation
Company type	Private
Industry	Computer hardware, Hard disk drives
Founded	February 1987; 39 years ago
Founder	Steven Kaczeus, Wayne Lockhart
Defunct	1994
Fate	Filed for bankruptcy
Successor	JT Storage Inc. (technological continuation)
Headquarters	Sunnyvale, United States
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Steven Kaczeus (co-founder), Wayne Lockhart (co-founder, former CEO), Robert Martel (CEO), David B. Pearce (CEO)
Products	3.5-inch hard disk drives

Kalok Corporation operated as a privately owned American manufacturer of hard disk drives, based in Sunnyvale, California. Established in February 1987 by entrepreneurs Steven Kaczeus and Wayne Lockhart, the firm focused on producing affordable 3.5-inch HDDs tailored for desktop PCs, igniting fierce pricing competition before filing for bankruptcy in 1994. While Kalok's drives were competitively priced, they were often criticized for lower reliability and performance, primarily due to their use of older stepper motor actuator technology at a time when the industry was transitioning to voice coil actuators.

History

With an initial venture capital investment of $1.5 million, Kalok leveraged the founders' combined expertise: Kaczeus brought engineering experience from companies such as Seagate and StorageTek, while Lockhart contributed more than two decades of management experience in Silicon Valley. The company’s name was derived by merging parts of the founders’ surnames. Kalok attracted market attention by sharply underpricing rivals through strategic value engineering and stringent cost reduction. Early manufacturing operations were contracted out to Oriental Precision Company in Seoul, which also held a minority ownership stake and marketed Kalok drives under its own brand.

In August 1988, Kalok launched the KL341 and KL343 models (40 MB) alongside the KL332 (30 MB), all priced below $330 and targeted at OEMs and value-added resellers. These models boasted mean time between failures (MTBF) of 43,000 hours—twice that of equivalent Seagate products. The company announced plans to release higher-capacity drives (ranging from 100 to 330 MB) for workstation applications by late 1989.

Manufacturing output at Oriental Precision increased swiftly from 1,000 units per month in late 1987 to 10,000 units by October 1988. By the end of 1989, Kalok began transitioning production to its own facility in the Philippines through a joint venture with the Ayala Corporation conglomerate. Although political unrest during the 1989 Philippine coup attempt caused a temporary shutdown of the factory, operations resumed thereafter.

In October 1990, Kalok secured $15 million through an equity round led by Mitsubishi, which acquired a 19% ownership stake and provided an $8 million credit facility. Additional investors included Japan’s Orix Group along with venture capital firms Techno-Venture and Tokyo Venture Capital; Sunwestern Investment Group was the only U.S.-based investor.

Kalok’s hard drive revenues peaked at $80 million in 1990 but then experienced a steep decline following Oriental Precision’s receivership that halted production and due to critical defects in ASIC controllers that triggered recalls and delays. Sales plummeted from $60 million in 1991 to just $42,000 in 1992, resulting in a $28 million operating loss. In November 1992, Lockhart stepped down as CEO; Robert Martel took over and initiated asset divestitures including selling the Octagon brand to Xebec Japan and returning the Philippine manufacturing facility to Ayala. Investors DZU AD (Bulgaria) and TEAC Corporation (Japan) contributed $8 million to support restructuring efforts. Martel resigned mid-1993 and was succeeded by David B. Pearce.

In 1994, Kalok filed for bankruptcy protection. Following this, Pearce co-founded JT Storage Inc., which continued advancing Kalok’s technological developments alongside industry veterans Sirjang Lal Tandon and Tom Mitchel.

KL-230 series

Model Number	Generation	Launch Year	Storage Capacity	Cache Size	Rotation Speed	Interface Type	Supported Features	Sector Size	Remarks	Reference Link
KL-230	1	2003	20 MB		3600 RPM	MFM, ST412	–	512 bytes	–	Specifications
KL-320			21 MB			MFM, ST506		512 bytes
KL-330			33 MB		3600 RPM	RLL, ST506		512 bytes
KL-332		1989	30 MB			ESDI		512 bytes
KL-340			43 MB			MFM, ST506		512 bytes
KL-341		1989	40 MB	8 KB	3600 RPM	SCSI-1		512 bytes
KL-342			43 MB			RLL, ST506		512 bytes
KL-343		1989	40 MB			RLL, ST506		512 bytes
KL-360			66 MB			RLL, ST506		512 bytes
KL-381			85 MB			SCSI-1		512 bytes
KL-383			85 MB			RLL, ST506		512 bytes

Services

Among Kalok's later offerings was a 100 megabyte 3.5-inch hard disk drive that utilized a stepper motor for the head actuator rather than the more prevalent servo-driven voice coil mechanism. This design choice led to constraints in both access speed and dependability. Produced in India, this model was mainly incorporated into budget-friendly generic personal computers.

During the early 1990s, Kalok developed hard disk drives for TEAC Corporation. These drives were integrated into removable hard disk systems marketed under both the TEAC and Kalok names. Following Kalok's collapse in 1994, its founder took on the role of chief technical officer at JT Storage (JTS), securing licensing agreements for patents from TEAC and Pont Peripherals to advance ongoing development efforts.

External links

Kalok – Hardware Collection (Chinese, English; archived)