A fixed drive is tucked away in the system out of Harm's Way. A SyQuest removable drive must be made accessible by humans. Here is where proper care and usage must be observed to give reliability equal to that of a fixed drive. This means the area should be kept clean of dust and blowing particles. No smoking around the system.
Smoke can get in the drive and leave a film on the heads, etc.
Besides, smoke may kill you before the SyQuest drive. Needless to say, you do not want any foreign material on the media surface as defects or worst yet a disk crash can occur. On internal units, it is best to mount the drives as far away from the fans direct air flow as possible. This will keep the amount of airborne particles to a minimum. For the drive installation to be successful, the Drive and Cartridge must pass their own diagnostics before any system can talk with the unit.