Anyone using the Apple USB SuperDrive and, if so, are you happy? I'm sure reading a lot of reviews that say "Don't even think about it", although I personally have never had that kind of experience with an Apple product.

I've had one for over 3 years now and no issues at all. Burned a lot of audio CD's on it.

I replaced an OWC SuperDrive attached to my wife’s Mac mini, with the USB bus powered Apple SuperDrive and we have both been pleased with its solid feel and performance in comparison with the OWC. While I am generally not a fan of slot loaders, the Apple drive has yet to present the first problem. Even better IIRC although it cost a bit more the price was generally competitive with the competition. I seldom, if ever, use DVDs any more, but if I did I would not hesitate to get the Apple DVD.

I too use the Apple SuperDrive and I am happy with it. One advantage it may have over other third party drives is that the keyboard eject key will work with the Apple drive; this may not be the case with other drives. With others you have to drag the icon of the disc to the Trash to affect an Eject.

Great....thanks, folks. Three reviews here are worth 50 elsewhere.

If you didn't notice, Apple's SuperDrive does NOT have a detachable cable, so it's more cumbersome than others to store and pack for travel.

Good point....however neither does it have a separate power supply which could be even more of a travel/packing pain in the patoot. So, for a laptop, it sounds like "pick your poison" but for a desktop, not an issue.

My OWC drive was described as possibly requiring either a separate power supply or the power provided by two USB ports, but I gambled (relying on a report by joemike) and found that it requires only the power provided by one port.

And thinking of OWC reminds me to mention that you'll have to go the 3rd party route if you want Blu-ray capability.

And the cable is quite short (I have mine on an extension cable) and, if I recall correctly, the SuperDrive must be plugged into the computer's USB port, not a port on a dock or the keyboard.

I assume that is related to sufficient power at the right amperage. That is, if a hub has enough juice it should be okay. I seem to recall once reading that the keyboard USB doesn't deliver much power, which I found puzzling because, if you're going to the trouble of installing the port, why not make it as functional as possible?

I'll take a hardwired usb cable over needing a brick any day.

Yes the issue is power and you can run the bus powered SuperDrive on a self-powered hub or even a buds powered USB 2 or 3 hub. Adding additional ports via a hub does not add additional power to drive devices attached to the hub. The reason the hub on the keyboard was/is so marginal on power is it is powered by the USB port on the computer and particularly on laptops the USB 1 ports were generally at the bottom end of the power range specified in the standard to conserve battery power and were not much better on desktop computers. In more recent machines the USB 2, 3, and particularly USB C standards specify significantly higher minimum power requirements.

FWIW I agree with V1 and will take a non detachable USB cable over a power brick any day.

Amen to that.

And I"ll third the motion, but I'll wonder out loud how many peripherals with hardwired cables others have run across.

I"ve never seen one other than Apple's SuperDrive, and hardwired cable v brick begs the question of why the drive doesn't come with a pretty much standard 18" detachable cable.

More: It just occurred to me to take a look, and Apple doesn't specify either whether their SuperDrive is USB 2 or 3 or how long its cable is...merely that the connecting cable is "USB-A".

Still more: At some point, Apple changed the image of the SuperDrive on its website to no longer display the cable and, so, avoid highlighting its non-detachability and shortness. Hmmm...

I don't think the drive was intended to be a desktop peripheral, so cable length wasn't considered. It may have had some intended role as a portable drive, like something you'd toss in your computer bag, where compactness and no-cable-to-lose / no-brick-to-forget is a plus. One would hope you'd use it once to load in all your floppies (either to the computer, or to burn them to disc, or to a flash drive) and then it goes into the "computer accessories misc" drawer in your office, never to see the light again.

I've seen a lot of people with that drawer in their office. Several times I've been asked to look at that while I was there doing a delivery-and-setup, and found something like 15 USB A/B cables, 3 USB A/miniB cables, 9 ethernet jumpers, 5 unidentifiable power bricks with no associated accessories in the drawer, a weird proprietary USB cable with no matching accessory present, 3 AC cords, and a handful of paperwork and post-it notes. "I think we can just throw most of that away..." It's like the "junk drawer" in most kitchens. (who is ever really going to use 10,000 twist ties?)