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Posted By: jaybass external optical drive - 04/19/10 06:26 PM
OS 10.5.8 imac

I am seriously thinking about buying an external optical drive.
Does anyone have any experience with the pioneer DVR-118LBK 22x IDE? If so, how do you rate it?

jaybass
Posted By: Virtual1 Re: external optical drive - 04/20/10 03:20 PM
what are you looking for?

- durability
- read speed
- burn speed (cd, or dvd?)
- bluray support? (read only, or write also)
- lightscribe suppport
Posted By: jaybass Re: external optical drive - 04/20/10 09:16 PM
I want durability. Mainly to rip DVDs. Read & write.

I put a pioneer 110 in my old emac and it worked fine.

I'm hoping there is a pioneer out there to serve my needs.

Any ideas?

jaybass


Posted By: Virtual1 Re: external optical drive - 04/20/10 11:07 PM
NO slot loader is durable. Period.

If you want durability, start by NOT considering a slot loader. For you this means going external. (USB or firewire)

And then you are dealing with a drive, in an enclosure, seldom made by the same manufacturers. (even if sold by one... lacie for example, does not make optical drives or hard drives... only enclosures) Note that not all enclosures work with optical drives. (and I have NO idea why, I just know it can be a gotcha)

Lacie makes decent cheap external burners. I'm currently a fan of macsales.com for optical drives though, they have really good customer support and I've had good luck so far with their products.
Posted By: jaybass Re: external optical drive - 04/21/10 03:15 PM
I do not want a slot loader. That one I mentioned is a tray loader I believe as is the one in my old emac.

I'll bear in mind what you have said.

jaybass
Posted By: Virtual1 Re: external optical drive - 04/21/10 09:22 PM
Sorry I misread I thought you said "imac", all of them besides the G4 and older g3 being slot loaders.

we ordered a lot of replacement optical drives from mcetech.com but they started having some customer relations problems so we don't use them much anymore. they do write their own ODD firmware which is kinda interesting. Unfortunately makes it a pain if you need the driver discs again etc, because other companies were buying the same generic drives (JVC etc) and were pointing their customers to MCE to get the drivers, and MCE was not amused. wink

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