Jaz Drive - Problems

Problems

The Jaz drive by design is much less prone to failure than was the Zip drive. Even so, Earlier Jaz drives were prone to overheating and in some cases, loading mechanism jams left a cartridge stuck in the drive. Forcibly ejecting the cartridge in this case usually ends in the destruction of both drive and cartridge. Since they were based on hard disk technology, one big problem that plagues all removable RRD drives is the risk of contaminants ending up in the drive. The Jaz cartridge outside its case is prone to getting dust/grit into it through the hole where the motor drives the platters, and any dust built up on the external case could end up in the drive with the next insertion. Even if this is not the case, the metal sliding door is capable of wearing the plastic, which results in debris. As a result, head crashes have occurred with some Jaz drives.

Furthermore, the mechanism used to attach the platters to the spindle motor is complex and prone to vibration (as many complained of noisy drives). Iomega implemented an anti-gyro device (much like an optical CD/DVD drive) within the cartridge to prevent this at spin-up, but it loses effectiveness with age. As a result, the two platters could lose alignment, rendering the cartridge unusable. Also in certain scenarios the plastic gears attached to the bottom of a Jaz cartridge were prone to stripping and breaking which rendered the inserted disk physically damaged and unable to be spun up to operating speed.