SATA optical drive in early '08 Mac Pro?

[pastrychef]

Has anyone installed a SATA optical drive in an early '08 Mac Pro? Are there any issues? How can the tray be ejected? Thanks for the info.

[rhyx]

Has anyone installed a SATA optical drive in an early '08 Mac Pro? Are there any issues? How can the tray be ejected? Thanks for the info.

The included drives are IDE and the spaces are for an IDE cable. I don't think you have additional SATA connectors for an optical. The board only has 4 SATA connectors from what I can see - made for the 4 hard drive sleds.

[PowerMike G5]

There are actually 6 SATA ports ... 2 or accessible from behind the Fan casing.

[pastrychef]

I found this picture. It's from the 1st gen Mac Pros, but it's in the new ones, too.

http://www.newertech.com/Static/articles/images/macensteineSATA_1.jpg

[itsallinurhead]

There are two extra sata ports in the early '08 mac pros.

[pastrychef]

Well, since it seemed like no one else around here had done it before, I took the plunge. Installation was a real PITA. I had to remove the front fan assembly to route the SATA cable properly. I used the bottom of the two SATA ports as seen in the picture above.

OS X seems to recognize it fine. Pressing the the eject key on the keyboard ejects the stock PATA optical drive. Pressing Option + eject will open the SATA drive's tray. I don't have time to do more tests at the moment, but will report back once I have done so.

[Jonny427]

I see no reason why a SATA optical drive wouldn't be 100% compatible, aside from the installation.

[pastrychef]

I just had a chance to burn a few discs. Here are some findings:

1. Both the stock drive and the new SATA drive works fine with Toast.
2. As far as I can tell, Fusion and Parallels won't work with the SATA drive.
3. Burning two discs at the same time is now realistically doable. Previously, when I tried with two PATA drives, both slowed to crawls... REALLY, REALLY SLOW!

So far, I'm a happy camper!

[Frozonecold]

I just had a chance to burn a few discs. Here are some findings:

1. Both the stock drive and the new SATA drive works fine with Toast.
2. As far as I can tell, Fusion and Parallels won't work with the SATA drive.
3. Burning two discs at the same time is now realistically doable. Previously, when I tried with two PATA drives, both slowed to crawls... REALLY, REALLY SLOW!

So far, I'm a happy camper!
Which drive did you get, I want to perform this upgrade as well.

[pastrychef]

Which drive did you get, I want to perform this upgrade as well.

Since my Mac Pro shipped with an Optiarc AD-7170A, I decided to go with something similar... I got an Optiarc AD-7191S. It also supports Lightscribe, but I haven't tested that yet.

[UberD]

I have a LG GGC-H20L installed still no bd support, but I am ready for when there is.

The sata optical drive does work in fusion. The problem I am having is you have to have the disc you want to use already in the drive when you start up fusion. I have opened a support ticket with vmware about this issue.

[pastrychef]

I have a LG GGC-H20L installed still no bd support, but I am ready for when there is.

The sata optical drive does work in fusion. The problem I am having is you have to have the disc you want to use already in the drive when you start up fusion. I have opened a support ticket with vmware about this issue.

I thought about getting a BD burner, but came to the conclusion that I don't need it yet. I figured, the longer I wait, the cheaper the drives and media will get. But I would definitely get one if/when Apple starts supporting the format.

That's good to know about Fusion. However, I kept the stock drive installed so I will continue to use that until VMware fixes it. Thanks for the info.

[rhyx]

Very cool to know about the extra SATA ports.

[trainguy77]

2. As far as I can tell, Fusion and Parallels won't work with the SATA drive.


That would make sense as windows doesn't recognize HDs connected to those ports either.

[Lucas44]

i've just installed a pioneer sata drive in my 2006 mac pro. i decided to stick the pioneer in the top bay with my stock sony drive in the lower bay. when i hit the eject key the bottom drive ejects. i can eject the top drive by hitting option-eject but would like to switch the key commands around.
anyone have any ideas on how i can do that, preferably without 3rd party software.

thanks

[krye]

I'll wait until Blu Ray drives are realistically priced (aka ~$99) before I think about throwing in another optical drive.

[pastrychef]

i've just installed a pioneer sata drive in my 2006 mac pro. i decided to stick the pioneer in the top bay with my stock sony drive in the lower bay. when i hit the eject key the bottom drive ejects. i can eject the top drive by hitting option-eject but would like to switch the key commands around.
anyone have any ideas on how i can do that, preferably without 3rd party software.

thanks

None that I am aware of.

[pastrychef]

I'll wait until Blu Ray drives are realistically priced (aka ~$99) before I think about throwing in another optical drive.

I'm waiting for blu-ray burners and media to drop in price a bit before I get one, too. The idea of being able to back up 25GB of data on a single disc is nice. :)