Regular Bluray burner in Mac Pro

[alphaod]

I know the Mac Pro uses a smaller bezel for their tray loaders, so would regular retail drive work? I know I can remove the bezel, but if I don't have to I won't.

I'm looking at the Pioneer 8x burner right now.

[ildondeigiocchi]

I know the Mac Pro uses a smaller bezel for their tray loaders, so would regular retail drive work? I know I can remove the bezel, but if I don't have to I won't.

I'm looking at the Pioneer 8x burner right now.

Any standard Bluray burner will work as long as you remove the front bezel otherwise it wont be able to eject. Also make sure you have an 09 Mac Pro if not your Bluray burner which is most probably SATA interferface will need to have an adapter from SATA to PATA. I have a BD burner (LG) that burns at 8x speeds perfectly. Should definitely work.

[gugucom]

Any standard Bluray burner will work as long as you remove the front bezel otherwise it wont be able to eject. Also make sure you have an 09 Mac Pro if not your Bluray burner which is most probably SATA interferface will need to have an adapter from SATA to PATA. I have a BD burner (LG) that burns at 8x speeds perfectly. Should definitely work.

Blu-Ray SATA burners work on the 2006-2008 MPs as well. You have to plug them into one of the ODD SATA ports on the logic board in the PCIe bay under the fan unit.

If you want to run it under Bootcamp you need to install AHCI drivers.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=760482

[alphaod]

Yes, the ones I'm looking at are all SATA. I think I might just transplant the bezel on my currently "SuperDrive" onto the Bluray burner (since I'll only be using one optical drive, not two).

And I don't worry about Boot Camp, since that's not a feature in OS X Server ;)

[alphaod]

Should I buy the Pioneer BDR-203BKS (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827129037)

Or the LG BH08LS20 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136164)

They're both the same price, same Bluray recording speeds, the LG has better ratings (but less of them), faster CD recording speed, and the Pioneer has lower rating (but more of them), slightly slower CD recording speed, but double the cache. Yes I still record CDs.

[ungraphic]

Blu-Ray SATA burners work on the 2006-2008 MPs as well. You have to plug them into one of the ODD SATA ports on the logic board in the PCIe bay under the fan unit.

If you want to run it under Bootcamp you need to install AHCI drivers.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=760482

Is it not possible to to extend some SATA and power cables to one of the 4 bays inside the mac pros (2006)? Its the same as the ones underneath the fan unit, right?

Also;

would burning a BD-R with files of documents and stuff show up on a mac pro the same as burning a dvd with files of documents? I'm interested in buying a Bluray burner for backing up important projects of mine with graphic design as well as photography, but i'd prefer to have certain things on a single disk.

Thanks!

[Tesselator]

Should I buy the Pioneer BDR-203BKS (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827129037)

Or the LG BH08LS20 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136164)


Pioneer has the best rep. <shrug>

Is it not possible to to extend some SATA and power cables to one of the 4 bays inside the mac pros (2006)? Its the same as the ones underneath the fan unit, right?

Sure that will work but why rip it off from a bay when there's two open and unused right there under the fan like gugucom said?

Also;

would burning a BD-R with files of documents and stuff show up on a mac pro the same as burning a dvd with files of documents? I'm interested in buying a Bluray burner for backing up important projects of mine with graphic design as well as photography, but i'd prefer to have certain things on a single disk.

I think it's the same yes. But I don't think BR is very good for backups. I mean you can get a eSATA shuttle for about $75 and a 1.5TB HDD for $100. So the HDD is about the same price (actually a little cheaper) as the BRDs are and it's many times faster! And the HDD isn't subject to failing weeks later, getting scratched, and etc. like the BRDs are. I dunno off hand what the shelf life of an HDD is but I bet it's an order of magnitude longer than a BRD.

I dunno maybe I'm still smarting from choosing CD/DVD as a backup solution for myself. I thought like you did. Yeah! DVDs are what I want! Now 6 years later I have 2,300 DVDs, no cataloging system, hundreds of hours wasted (over that of using HDDs instead), I've had to replace the DVD burner about 5 times, and just about 20% of the time I pull out a DVD for access or restore the sucker has errors. What a totally crappy BU system that turned out to be! :mad: I'm guessing BRDs are going to be the same thing - not very good as a back-up solution. If I think about that is terms of money I've spent about $1500 on a slow and poor BU solution when less that that would have been faster and better. Now looking at the task of transferring all 2,300 DVDs over to just 6 $100 HDDs my lack of foresight seems glaringly obvious.


.

[gugucom]

Is it not possible to to extend some SATA and power cables to one of the 4 bays inside the mac pros (2006)? Its the same as the ones underneath the fan unit, right?

Also;

would burning a BD-R with files of documents and stuff show up on a mac pro the same as burning a dvd with files of documents? I'm interested in buying a Bluray burner for backing up important projects of mine with graphic design as well as photography, but i'd prefer to have certain things on a single disk.

Thanks!

The MP has only two 5,25" ODD bays but four 3,5" HDD bays. Power for ODD can be used directly from the ODD bay (if SATA is needed for 2006 MP a small 2$ adapter Molex->SATA will do).

The SATA data cable needs to come from one of the unused ODD SATA ports under the fan unit.

[ungraphic]

The SATA data cable needs to come from one of the unused ODD SATA ports under the fan unit.

Is it difficult getting into that port?

[ungraphic]

Pioneer has the best rep. <shrug>



Sure that will work but why rip it off from a bay when there's two open and unused right there under the fan like gugucom said?



I think it's the same yes. But I don't think BR is very good for backups. I mean you can get a eSATA shuttle for about $75 and a 1.5TB HDD for $100. So the HDD is about the same price (actually a little cheaper) as the BRDs are and it's many times faster! And the HDD isn't subject to failing weeks later, getting scratched, and etc. like the BRDs are. I dunno off hand what the shelf life of an HDD is but I bet it's an order of magnitude longer than a BRD.

I dunno maybe I'm still smarting from choosing CD/DVD as a backup solution for myself. I thought like you did. Yeah! DVDs are what I want! Now 6 years later I have 2,300 DVDs, no cataloging system, hundreds of hours wasted (over that of using HDDs instead), I've had to replace the DVD burner about 5 times, and just about 20% of the time I pull out a DVD for access or restore the sucker has errors. What a totally crappy BU system that turned out to be! :mad: I'm guessing BRDs are going to be the same thing - not very good as a back-up solution. If I think about that is terms of money I've spent about $1500 on a slow and poor BU solution when less that that would have been faster and better. Now looking at the task of transferring all 2,300 DVDs over to just 6 $100 HDDs my lack of foresight seems glaringly obvious.


.

Problem with an external HDD is that I don't want a 3.5" external, its not really portable (requires a power outlet and usually needs an adapter, which adds to the bulk of 'portability') so for now, a 500gb 2.5" will do (or 640gb if i can find one).

I mainly want bluray to stash away photoshoots to disc, ones which use more than 8.5gb (dvd-dl), or tv episodes to watch on my mac, or photos/videos from vacation.

[Capt. Corduroy]

Looking at installing a Blu-ray burner myself in my Mac Pro 2009. I was wondering, are these drives bootable? Is there a Blu-ray drive I could use a as replacement for the stock DVD drive? I want to use the other bay for a hard drive.

FYI, I want to use the drive with FCS 2009. Sorry to hear about your bad experiences with DVD backup Tesselator. :(

Thanks people.

[gugucom]

Is it difficult getting into that port?

Not really if you have some basic experience with your machine or have a manual. On the 2006 you need to pull out the RAM risers, loosen the RAM cage, take out the heat sink cover, loosen the Philips screw that holds the fan unit and pull up the fan unit.

Then you need to pull out the ODD drive bay holder. Thread a 60 cm SATA cable with 90° head through the bulk head opening that is used for all other cables from the PSU to the logic board. If you have difficulties temporarily remove the bridge with the 22 pin female #1 HDD SATA conector. Then it gets much easier to get the straight connector with the cable through from the logic bord side. It would be much more difficult to thread the cable with the 90° connector from the PSU/Optical Drive bay.

Seat the SATA cable in the ODD SATA port of your choice and reassemble in reverse order until your RAM risers are seated again.

Fit your Blu-Ray ROM or Burner in the ODD tray and connect the Molex power cable with a Molex-> SATA adapter. Fit the SATA data cable. Re insert your ODD drive carrier/tray.

I recommend the current LG drives. They work really good and they are competitively priced. They also work well with OS X.

Do not expect to boot ODs from the drive. EFI is not capable to do that because it expects OD boot from IDE.

[gugucom]

Looking at installing a Blu-ray burner myself in my Mac Pro 2009. I was wondering, are these drives bootable? Is there a Blu-ray drive I could use a as replacement for the stock DVD drive? I want to use the other bay for a hard drive.

FYI, I want to use the drive with FCS 2009. Sorry to hear about your bad experiences with DVD backup Tesselator. :(

Thanks people.

In the Nehalem they are bootable. You can replace the supperdrive with a Blu-Ray directly.

[Tesselator]

Not really if you have some basic experience with your machine or have a manual. On the 2006 you need to pull out the RAM risers, loosen the RAM cage, take out the heat sink cover, loosen the Philips screw that holds the fan unit and pull up the fan unit.

You don't need to loosen the the RAM cage at all. It's just two simple steps to get to the ports. And if you don't have mammoth hands it's zero steps and directly accessible - kinda. Ya, gotta monkey around a bit tho.

The two steps if you have man-hands are:


Remove the aluminum cover located over the CPUs.
unscrew and pull out the Front Fan assembly.

And the ports are right there.

[gugucom]

You don't need to loosen the the RAM cage at all. It's just two simple steps to get to the ports. And if you don't have mammoth hands it's zero steps and directly accessible - kinda. Ya, gotta monkey around a bit tho.

The two steps if you have man-hands are:


Remove the aluminum cover located over the CPUs.
unscrew and pull out the Front Fan assembly.

And the ports are right there.

To remove that alu cover you will find loosing the RAM cage feasible. ;)

[Capt. Corduroy]

In the Nehalem they are bootable. You can replace the supperdrive with a Blu-Ray directly.

Thanks!

[Tesselator]

To remove that alu cover you will find loosing the RAM cage feasible. ;)

Feasible in this way meaning convenient? Actually not. My RAM cage is frozen shut - ooo that sounds so dirty! :D But all seriousness aside, indeed not a single screw associated with the RAM cage on my 2006 MP is unscrewable. They're like, cemented on or something - impossible to remove without drilling them out. And I've heard this from numerous others as well. Even the original step tutorial written in mid 2006 said his were impossible too.

Luckily the RAM cage poses no obstacle what-so-ever and doesn't need to be messed with at all. Not for CPU exchange, and for sure not for those cable connectors.

YMMV, mine didn't.

[gugucom]

Apple usually secure all screws with a bit of blue Loctite. :D You know how over enthusiastic some people get when they can deal out expensive stuff. The same applies to thermal grease with some service engineers. So I guess you got one of those where the factory manager was scatching his head that Joe Ching was out of his monthly allocation of Loctite after three days. :p

[alphaod]

Alright I just ordered the Pioneer Bluray burner; NewEgg let me add it to cart and then miraculously they sold out when I tried to check out. Oh well my luck. Ended up getting it from OWC for a couple more.

I also ordered 20 25GB BD-R disks, 10 50GB BD-R disk, and 2 50GB BD-RE disks. Damn these disks are expensive.

[ehlfg]

I just transferred an LG Blu-Ray drive from my PC to my 2008 Mac Pro. Used a SATA-IDE adapter, as I didn't want to bother with routing SATA cable.

There were a few gotchas, though:


Had to pop off the tray bezel. OWC has a video showing how to do this.
I wanted to use both the Blu-Ray drive and one of the original optical drives, but the spacing between connectors on the IDE cable was too short to work with the new drives. I wanted to avoid running new cable, so I used a 2" IDE extension cable to increase the connector spacing.
The 2" IDE cable I got (from EBay) had pin 20 (key) present in the connectors, so it wouldn't fit into the Apple IDE connector (which had a blocked pin 20). I had to remove pin 20 on the extension connector.

[ntux]

I just transferred an LG Blu-Ray drive from my PC to my 2008 Mac Pro. Used a SATA-IDE adapter, as I didn't want to bother with routing SATA cable.

I also think that's the best solution for 2006-2008 Mac Pros, as you retain booting from the optical drive (something you don't have on with ODD SATA on the pre nehalem Mac Pros, unless you do some AHCI voodoo), and blu-ray playback in Windows is still working (AFAIK, haven't personnally tested).

I'm also considering that option (I've bough sata-ide adapters on ebay, but I'm waiting for BR drives to get cheaper as that's not urgent for me) for my 2008 MP. On top of that, it would leave the ODD SATA connectors free for, say, Intel X25-M Raid 0 on the 2nd optical bay ;)

[gugucom]

I also think that's the best solution for 2006-2008 Mac Pros, as you retain booting from the optical drive (something you don't have on with ODD SATA on the pre nehalem Mac Pros, unless you do some AHCI voodoo), and blu-ray playback in Windows is still working (AFAIK, haven't personnally tested).

IMHO that will not work. It was exactly what I tried first and found out I had to have a SATA connection with AHCI to have play back.

The AHCI voodoo isn't really so bad once you have it sorted out. I do it in 5 minutes now. It took me less than that to do my uMBP when I put Win7 on it.

[ntux]

IMHO that will not work. It was exactly what I tried first and found out I had to have a SATA connection with AHCI to have play back.

Hum ...
After reading a post (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=7959579) on apple's discussions forums, I was under the impression that it also worked with PATA connections (on 2008 Mac Pros, at least).

Ehlfg, have you tested BR playback in bootcamp using the ide adapter ? (maybe it's a thing with the 2006 MPs, aka the cursed ones ;):D )

[Tesselator]

Of course the only way to find out is to try it but I think it should work fine. My IDE is fully functional under boot-camp Windows in XP, Vista 32, and Vista 64 on a 2006 MacPro.

I've had the Superdrive fully recognized. I currently have a Pioneer CD/DVD unit and also this thing:

http://tesselator.gpmod.com/Images/_Equipment_n_Tutorials/_RamDrive_Tests/Dual_Card_Drive_03_sm.jpg http://tesselator.gpmod.com/Images/_Equipment_n_Tutorials/_RamDrive_Tests/Dual_Card_Drive_02_sm.jpg

and they both work fine. <shrug>



.

[gugucom]

My IDE is fully functional under boot-camp Windows in XP, Vista 32, and Vista 64 on a 2006 MacPro. I've had the Superdrive fully recognized. I currently have a Pioneer CD/DVD unit....

Actually the question was about Blu-Ray play back. Are you doing that with your IDE set up? I thought you do only superdrive apps.

[ehlfg]

Ehlfg, have you tested BR playback in bootcamp using the ide adapter ? (maybe it's a thing with the 2006 MPs, aka the cursed ones ;):D )

I haven't installed bootcamp yet, unfortunately, so I can't say whether BR playback works.

[Tesselator]

Actually the question was about Blu-Ray play back. Are you doing that with your IDE set up? I thought you do only superdrive apps.

That's why I said the only way to find out was to try it. Please quote the entire post next time and don't take it out of context. Thanks.

[gugucom]

That's why I said the only way to find out was to try it. Please quote the entire post next time and don't take it out of context. Thanks.

NP, will do. This was just to make things clearer. I had no intention to piss you off. So take my apology if my ettikette have failed me.

[Tesselator]

NP, will do. This was just to make things clearer. I had no intention to piss you off. So take my apology if my ettikette have failed me.

Sure NP, I probably took it too strongly. I'm a bit paranoid in that regard. My experience shows me that people form little sub-agendas based on whether or not someone agrees with them or not. Since there were a few threads I corrected you in recently I naturally went for the worst case explanation.

Sorry about that. :D

Anyway, back on topic I don't see why a BRD wouldn't work over IDE with adaptor or otherwise. To find out for sure I guess it needs to be actually tested.

[gugucom]

Sure NP, I probably took it too strongly. I'm a bit paranoid in that regard. My experience shows me that people form little sub-agendas based on whether or not someone agrees with them or not. Since there were a few threads I corrected you in recently I naturally went for the worst case explanation.

Sorry about that. :D

Anyway, back on topic I don't see why a BRD wouldn't work over IDE with adaptor or otherwise. To find out for sure I guess it needs to be actually tested.

Unless I did something terribly wrong that is exactly what I did the first day after I bought my used MP1,1. I actually bought a genuine IDE Blu-Ray ROM because the MP only had IDE. When I tested the thing with the evaluation program it told me to use AHCI. That at least is my memory of the story back some months in April I believe. I did not check if you can get AHCI with IDE because that appeared a waste of time compared to returning the drive and taking a SATA drive which I got even cheaper. I was aware that the MP1,1 had ODD-SATA ports and went through the AHCI voodoo at that time. It took me a week to figure it out from scatch by reading the hackintosh forums.

[Tesselator]

Unless I did something terribly wrong that is exactly what I did...

So you connected a BRD to the IDE and it didn't work? Didn't work in bootcamp, OSX, or both?

[ntux]

I've just installed a LG BH08LS20 sata blu-ray burner in my 2008 Mac Pro, using a sata-to-ide adapter, and it works !

I replaced the stock superdrive with the LG, using an ide adapter (SunplusIT SATALink SPIF223A-HL022 chipset), and also have a pata 3.5" hd in the 2nd optical bay (set to cable select).

The blu-ray drive was as-is correctly identified by snow leopard (BR burning capabilities too), is bootable, and is capable of blu-ray playback in bootcamp.

The only issue I had wasn't due to the drive, but to the Apple 8800GT that doesn't seems to be HDCP compliant (the nvidia drivers in bootcamp are saying that my monitor is compliant (true), but not the graphic card, WTF APPLE ????? ). I'm not the only one noticing that (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1331366&tstart=0), it seems ... That's a shame (but sadly not the first surprise from Apple regarding graphics cards :mad::mad::mad:).

I had to install AnyDVD to remove the hdcp protection, but once done, blu-ray playback from the sata drive with the ide adapter was flawless.

[gugucom]

So you connected a BRD to the IDE and it didn't work? Didn't work in bootcamp, OSX, or both?

I missed that question, Tess. I originally had an IDE drive in a 2006 MP which I could not get to work. I then exchanged it to a SATA drive which ran both in Bootcamp Windows and OS X (both with AHCI driver). Obviously I did not get BD play back under OS X but only under Windows. I did not get ODD booting from that SATA drive. So ntux's solution looks advantageous to me. I was using the Cyber link 7.3 software which came with the drive. It is a terrible piece of junk. It looks like the anyDVD is much better.

I am now upgrading to a 2009 machine and the LG SATA BD ROM will be my only ODD in that machine. The 2009 MP has no IDE.

[Nadav35]

Not really if you have some basic experience with your machine or have a manual. On the 2006 you need to pull out the RAM risers, loosen the RAM cage, take out the heat sink cover, loosen the Philips screw that holds the fan unit and pull up the fan unit.

Then you need to pull out the ODD drive bay holder. Thread a 60 cm SATA cable with 90° head through the bulk head opening that is used for all other cables from the PSU to the logic board. If you have difficulties temporarily remove the bridge with the 22 pin female #1 HDD SATA conector. Then it gets much easier to get the straight connector with the cable through from the logic bord side. It would be much more difficult to thread the cable with the 90° connector from the PSU/Optical Drive bay.

Seat the SATA cable in the ODD SATA port of your choice and reassemble in reverse order until your RAM risers are seated again.

Fit your Blu-Ray ROM or Burner in the ODD tray and connect the Molex power cable with a Molex-> SATA adapter. Fit the SATA data cable. Re insert your ODD drive carrier/tray.

I recommend the current LG drives. They work really good and they are competitively priced. They also work well with OS X.

Do not expect to boot ODs from the drive. EFI is not capable to do that because it expects OD boot from IDE.

Thats funny, while true, they aren't used in bootcamp, I have no trouble booting off of them through the ODD_PORTS on my mac pro to boot up MAC OS X SNOW LEOPARD. They work perfectly!!! You are wrong. Maybe you have an older mac pro, but in my 2008 my two blu-ray drives work great and bootable(OS X ONLY) while plugged into the two ODD SATA ports. PLEASE stop saying they don't work, when they really do.

And I think Apple is releasing in bootcamp 3.1 drivers for the two ODD SATA ports anyway.. an inside person told me this.

[pastrychef]

I can confirm that I can boot from an optical drive connected to one of the extra SATA connectors under the fan enclosure on my 2008 Mac Pro.

[gugucom]

I can confirm that I can boot from an optical drive connected to one of the extra SATA connectors under the fan enclosure on my 2008 Mac Pro.

I never had a 2008 model and went by the experience with the 2006 model. I may have jumped to the conclusion that the lack of booting from SATA ODD drives applies to the 2008 as well.

I do know that the 2008 got a new EFI64 and it is entirely possible that Apple already included a SATA boot capability in that EFI. They did not use it in the hardware spec for a year until they finally switched to SATA drives in the 2009 machine. It looks like I have been to negative there. I apologise if someone made bad decisions based on my postings. These things are not easy to understand at least if you do not have all hardware models to test.

The advantage of this forum is that we can all contribute to the truth. So thanks for bringing this up.

[Dark Goob]

I put an LG BH08LS20 into my Mac Pro (2009). Previously I was using it via external USB -> SATA adapter with a MacBook Pro (6/'07) with no issues. Great drive! Though, for some reason burning with the Mac Pro and Toast 10.0.2 I was getting kernel panics similar to those described here (http://forums.macrumors.com/newreply.php?do=postreply&t=801138), but I'm not convinced it's related to the drive itself in any way, since I know of two other people who have had this issue, and in their cases they were not using this drive.

One note: I did custom-flash the firmware of this drive so that it is now seen as BH08NS20; it's flashed using MediaCodeSpeedEdit (http://ala42.cdfreaks.com/MCSE/) in Windows, with the firmware from the Buffalo BR-H816 (http://buffalo.jp/download/driver/hd/br-h816_fw.html). This firmware allows the drive faster speeds and ability to burn to the cheaper CenDyne BD-R media (http://www.evertek.com/products_sc.asp?cat=958), which runs ~USD$100 for 50 discs.