Finding external enclosure for 9.5mm SuperDrive

I am on the same boat as you. I just ordered a newmodeus obhd and will be needing an external enclosure for my superdrive.

I found an enclosure at mce, but I think you have to purchase their optibay caddy to add that to the order.

If anyone knows where to find an enclosure, please post.

I think I've found it. I'm not 100% sure but macrecycling.com has the enclosures in silver or black for under $20.

edit: These are listed on eBay with the best offer option.

For your SATA drive on your unibody, you'll need a USB slim-line enclosure; for your MacBook you need a IDE enclosure; also you have to find a way to buy bezels for the drives first.

actually the links I posted earlier won't work because they are for 12.7mm drives.

back to square one.

I have a superdrive that's now external and I don't want it to go to waste. I rarely burn dvd or cds but I would like to have it to functional in the occasion that I have to re-install an OS.

update:
after a few hours of searching, i found an adapter that will hopefully make your superdrive functional. i googled "slim ide to usb".

http://www.centrix-intl.com/details.asp?productid=3022

2nd update:
eBay has an adapter at thisstore. ships from hong kong though.

Update?

iJimmy said:

actually the links I posted earlier won't work because they are for 12.7mm drives.

back to square one.

I have a superdrive that's now external and I don't want it to go to waste. I rarely burn dvd or cds but I would like to have it to functional in the occasion that I have to re-install an OS.

update:
after a few hours of searching, i found an adapter that will hopefully make your superdrive functional. i googled "slim ide to usb".

http://www.centrix-intl.com/details.asp?productid=3022

2nd update:
eBay has an adapter at thisstore. ships from hong kong though.

Click to expand...

Did you get this to work?

zero85ZEN said:

Did you get this to work?

Click to expand...

I ordered a different one fromeBay. It's a 12.7mm as I had a hard time finding a 9.5mm.

I'll let you know if it works when I receive it (hopefully by friday).

MCE OptiBay Hard Drive enclosure

Here: http://store.mcetech.com/Merchant2/...7&Category_Code=STORHDOPTIBAY&Product_Count=1

They have one for $49 that lets you use your removed SuperDrive externally via usb.

This is a cool setup that I'm going to implement to get two 500GB HD's into my MBP. Going with a Seagate 7200rpm for my primary drive and in the OptiBay put my current 5400rpm drive as my Time Machine. And still be able to use my SuperDrive when needed.

EDIT: I see this was mentioned earlier in the thread...but in regards to a 15" MBP I see they don't offer an enclosure for the removed SuperDrive.

I received the enclosure today. Simple plug and play. It uses the same exact controller as linked above. So if you want to save a few bucks, you can just get the controller for $9 here

I'll add some pictures later.

So that makes three products like this now then?

iJimmy said:

I am on the same boat as you. I just ordered a newmodeus obhd and will be needing an external enclosure for my superdrive.

I found an enclosure at mce, but I think you have to purchase their optibay caddy to add that to the order.

If anyone knows where to find an enclosure, please post.

Click to expand...

Pictures as promised

@ iJimmy

I've been thinking about doing this myself, and I was wondering if I could get a summation of what all you used for your external drive. Is that the Unibody's superdrive, the $20 macrecycling.com enclosure, and the $9 controller? Or, did you go with a different enclosure?

iJimmy said:

I received the enclosure today. Simple plug and play. It uses the same exact controller as linked above. So if you want to save a few bucks, you can just get the controller for $9 here

I'll add some pictures later.

Click to expand...

Thank you so much for that $9 link iJimmy!

I've been looking for an affordable way to salvage my Superdrive. I was originally going to take the route of buying an external Firewire 800 enclosure for my internal HDD, but it was pretty pricey at an average price of around $70 for these enclosures, not to mention that I hate having external devices hanging off of my laptop.

So I looked into placing the HDD in the optical bay, but that would mean spending $42 for the newmodeus caddy, $50-80 for a Superdrive enclosure or a new external DVD drive. That's on top of the $250 or so I'd be spending on the Intel X25 G2 SSD.

Your solution is perfect. I'm spending a total of $52 for the entire set up now. $42 for the newmodeus caddy and $9.75 for the adaptor. I use my DVD once or 2-4 times a year burning a DVD or reinstalling the OS, so I can just put it away when not in use so appearance doesn't matter at all.

The one that iJimmy linked to is the IDE version, but here's the SATA version that I bought.

Is the drive from the 17" uMBP 12.7 or 9.5? I dont have it here to measure...

Got the adapter today. It works perfectly.

PLug-n-PLay

iJimmy said:

Simple plug and play. It uses the same exact controller as linked above. here

Click to expand...

Hey, I'm new to the forum to start. Joined for this topic.

I bought on of these enclosures for this EXACT reason a few weeks ago. Problem is I can't get the disk drive to work. (It works in windows with the driver)

It Registers the USB to IDE device in the system profiler, but no DVD drive.

Anyone have any ideas? (By plug and play you mean no drivers what soever right?)

EDIT
Got it working. I'm not sure what exactly the problem was

Anyone else not able to play DVD's after placing the original in this enclosure? I can read, write, etc. with the drive (even installed SL) but I cannot play a video DVD, get an error from DVD player "A valid DVD drive could not be found [-70012]" but I can find the DVD in finder...

capn00 said:

Anyone else not able to play DVD's after placing the original in this enclosure? I can read, write, etc. with the drive (even installed SL) but I cannot play a video DVD, get an error from DVD player "A valid DVD drive could not be found [-70012]" but I can find the DVD in finder...

Click to expand...

Yes, that's a known issue. You can't play DVDs through an external USB DVD and iDVD. Use VLC Player, works just fine.

i think NC Macguy has fixed that issue...i may be wrong though, maybe it was a mod for the mba drive.

I bought an external Samsung DVD-burner instead of an enclosure so I wouldn't have to bother with the assembly, and the thing requires TWO powered USB-ports, so two out of the three ports on the 17" will be taken whenever I use it. And no, it doesn't work with a normal USB-hub, it has to be powered.

Just a small scary story for you guys...

best to buy a macbook air superdrive and crack it for $ 9.00 ..

i have done it, works 100% and is done in 1/2 hour.

p.s. works as expected with only the usb-connection (1) ...

Not in my case, I specifically wanted to NOT have to crack/solder/whatever anything.
Anyway, I'll live with the two-usb-cable thing.

capn00 said:

Anyone else not able to play DVD's after placing the original in this enclosure? I can read, write, etc. with the drive (even installed SL) but I cannot play a video DVD, get an error from DVD player "A valid DVD drive could not be found [-70012]" but I can find the DVD in finder...

Click to expand...

fehhkk said:

Yes, that's a known issue. You can't play DVDs through an external USB DVD and iDVD. Use VLC Player, works just fine.

Click to expand...

Heres the thread on getting Apple DVD Player to work with external drives.

It was an interesting procedure and worksjust fine now and was well worth it.

Good Luck!

adamk77 said:

The one that iJimmy linked to is the IDE version, but here's the SATA version that I bought.

Click to expand...

Man I'd get this if the shipping costs weren't so bloody high. (Shipping to: The Netherlands).

15" uMBP from June 09

I am about to do this upgrade. I also want to put another HDD in in place of my SuperDrive and I am just wondering how I can confirm what kind of interface my interanl optical drive will have?

I have the 2nd to last uMBP release, a 15" from Jun 09 (I think this is the right month).

Anyway is it IDE or SATA?

I dont know how to check this, and I am too lazy to figure it out right now, hopefully someone can let me know...

thanks in advance


(I have a feeling it is SATA... )