2006 Mac Pro 1,1 optical drive recommendation

c23roo said:

Am I stuck running a SATA cable?

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Does it have to be internal? To avoid the hassle (and probably extra cost) involved in trying to do it internally, I'd probably get a dirt cheap USB drive and just put it on top of the case. CD/DVD is such a slow medium that USB 2.0 is comfortably fast enough.

The front pops off most dvd drives so pretty much any current drive will "fit".

Hi, went through a similar thing with my 2008 model. The thread and the very useful responses is here. Apparently they're called PATA drives now. That's what threw me. I just bought a cheapo one off Amazon.

The front plate does come off the drives but in my case it seemed to need some brute force and courage. I managed to snap a small corner off but that didn't affect things.

Just a thought: If you have/want to replace the optical drive anyway, why not going for something that can write DVD-Ram as well? The normal self-burned optical media is not very reliable over time in the first place and i have the impression that quality has strongly degraded over the years - both on raw media and on the drives.

DVD-Ram otoh is based on similar technology as a standard DVD+/-R(W), but with some additional data safety mechnisms like e.g. hard sectoring and integrated defect management. With proper drives you could still continue to burn "normal" CD's and DVD's (e.g. to show off photos or transfer data from A to B), while being able to backup important data on better media or use it as the better DVD+/-RW alternative.

Granted - DVD-Ram media has stayed comparably small in capacity compared to a harddrive, but they match DVD capacities, which is no wonder with them being the higher-quality (however also higher medium price) sibling. Which may be one of the reasons why TV recorders increasingly support that format.

Even though not everyone has a DVD drive with DVD-Ram capabilities, i find this a good complement in my backup strategy. Of course MO drives are even more reliable, but then also much smaller in capacity and not really present on the markets anymore (luckily i'm supplied sufficiently ).

Sata to Ida cable

c23roo said:

Searched but haven't come up with any recent suggestions, so thought I'd throw this out there.
My Superdrive has been acting up lately; burning iPhoto discs (or burning from burn folder, for that matter) have been producing more frequent coasters these days.
I was thinking of popping a new drive in there but there don't seem to be a lot of IDE choices. I did find one locally but the tray would not fit through the slot when I hooked it up and tried to use it.

Any thoughts? I have (after the fact) thought that maybe I could have pulled the plastic front off the CD tray. But as it was a friend's DVD burner I did not want to do that and have it not work out.

Am I stuck running a SATA cable? I have seen some links here somewhere that referenced this. And then how will I ensure I get a drive that will fit the slot?

c

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You can get a IDE to SATA cable and use a SATA optical drive, you could even put in a blu ray drive.

rabidz7 said:

You can get a IDE to SATA cable and use a SATA optical drive, you could even put in a blu ray drive.

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Blu-ray discs are decent quality now. With any disks you have to keep them in a dark cool place, the light makes them fade