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2nd Optical Drive Bay on New PowerMac

D

davidjuw

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 15, 2002
3
0
So....will the 2nd drive bay support any IDE Optical Drive?

The reason I ask is because it sure would be nice to stick a 48x CDR Drive in the 2nd bay to do some fast CD Copies from the main drive to the CDR Drive. I think that these drives are relatively cheap now too...around $70.

Will OS X & Toast Titanium support any IDE CDR Drive for the 2nd bay, or do I need to get a certain brand/model?

Also, how will you be able to eject the 2nd bay? I sure hope that both bays don't open up when you hit the eject button. Possibly Shift+Eject for the 2nd bay?

Thanks,
DJ
 
Or use the eject function from Toast... :rolleyes:

As for compatible drives, here's a thought, CHECK OUT ROXIO'S WEB SITE!!! They have a list of the drives that will work with Toast. It took me all of a minute to locate where they have the list of drive compatibilities... I'm sure you can do it too... :p
 
Anyone notice that the option to add a second optical drive on apple's site will cost you £200, but you can find a DVD/ CDRW (LG 4120B) drive thats fully compatible for around £70?

Seems a bit steep to me:(
 
Originally posted by ponyboy
Any suggestions on brand names for IDE CDRW drives that have proven themselves reliable?
Click to expand...

I've swapped out my DVD drive for a CDRW/DVD using a LG drive as noted above, works as a normal drive would, Finder likes it, as does disc burner and toast also.

Neat alround and only takes about 5 mins to swap out :)
 
Some of you will poo poo this but:

Personally I'd do a Superdrive and put a DVD-RAM drive under it for backing up libraries and essentials.
 
Re: Re: 2nd Optical Drive Bay on New PowerMac

Originally posted by MacCoaster

Drag 'n drop from OS X desktop to trash will do it just fine.
Click to expand...

I think davidjuv meant how do you open tray 2 or 1 when there is no disc in the drive, and not both at the same time.
 
Re: Re: Re: 2nd Optical Drive Bay on New PowerMac

Originally posted by zarathustra


I think davidjuv meant how do you open tray 2 or 1 when there is no disc in the drive, and not both at the same time.
Click to expand...

Again, use Toast to eject/open the tray... Under Toast Titanium, you DO have an eject menu item, which opens the tray of the drive you have selected to burn to... :rolleyes:
 
Yamaha and Plextor and Tdk are the big names Yamaha even lets you use the burner to print on the disks. These drives usually cost more and I think Tdk drives insides are lite-on on the inside.
Lite-on, Samsung, Philips, Sony, Teac, usually cost a lot less.
A good source is www.xlr8yourmac.com lets you check compatability with your cpu. I found www.cdrinfo.com helpful also
40x-48x drives are really that much faste than 32x drives because they dont right at 40x-48x until the disk is almost done. almost all start at 24 then 28 then32 then36 then40 and so forth. use to be 4-16x drives wrote at 4-16x.
Sort of like the maximum MegaBytes per seconds for hard drives.
I have had good luck with plextor and yamaha drives for my audio Cds. but I think they are overpriced.
Lite-on probably gives you the most value.
I would like to hear from other posters though.
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: 2nd Optical Drive Bay on New PowerMac

Originally posted by AlphaTech


Again, use Toast to eject/open the tray... Under Toast Titanium, you DO have an eject menu item, which opens the tray of the drive you have selected to burn to... :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

OK, let me get this straight.

I have a Superdrive in tray 1 and a DVD/CDR drive in tray 2. I have no disks in either tray and I don't have toast. How do I open tray 2 ONLY under these circumstances and/or how can I independently open these drives without using TOAST.
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 2nd Optical Drive Bay on New PowerMac

Originally posted by zarathustra


OK, let me get this straight.

I have a Superdrive in tray 1 and a DVD/CDR drive in tray 2. I have no disks in either tray and I don't have toast. How do I open tray 2 ONLY under these circumstances and/or how can I independently open these drives without using TOAST.
Click to expand...

If you are serious about doing burns, you would/will have Toast... Hell, you can get the OEM copy for free (if you know someone that recently purchased a burner ;)). That also works under OS X.

I just used Toast earlier today on a blue and white with an attached burner... With the drive selected for burning, Toast ejected it when I told it to.

Have you considered that 10.2 could have support for cases such as this, and will allow you to eject either drive (even empty) when you want to???
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 2nd Optical Drive Bay on New PowerMac

Originally posted by AlphaTech


If you are serious about doing burns, you would/will have Toast... Hell, you can get the OEM copy for free (if you know someone that recently purchased a burner ;)). That also works under OS X.

I just used Toast earlier today on a blue and white with an attached burner... With the drive selected for burning, Toast ejected it when I told it to.

Have you considered that 10.2 could have support for cases such as this, and will allow you to eject either drive (even empty) when you want to???
Click to expand...

Hypothetical situation, my friend. Of course I have toast, but I was just wondering if some 10.2 beta tester stumbled across a feature where you can control sucha thing. Or maybe someone is beta testing the new hardware?:D ;) :D
 
I had a friend who had an internal drive and an external FW cd-r/w on his G4. When he hit the eject key the first time it would open the internal, the second would close the internal and open the external. Weird, huh?

I'm sure Apple has a fix for this now. We don't know yet, so we'll just have to wait and see. The easiest is to just use the manual eject button on the drive itself. That's what I do on my PC.

I like the Teac 40/12/48. 8 MB Buffer. iTunes support with a plugin. Nice. Go to xlr8yourmac.com for more info. They'll know stuff in a few days.
 
Originally posted by solvs
I had a friend who had an internal drive and an external FW cd-r/w on his G4. When he hit the eject key the first time it would open the internal, the second would close the internal and open the external. Weird, huh?

I'm sure Apple has a fix for this now.
Click to expand...

Yep they fixed it, used to happen with my external (and replaced) USB CDRW drive, most annoying, was always knocking my mug over :D
 
The pro keyboards up until now had an eject key on them right??? well which optical drive will it control???

Perhaps, and this is what I think, perhaps this is the reason apple discontinued the current pro keyboard, to introduce one that has 2 eject buttons on it, one for each drive.. it makes sense, since they are probably gonna ship with new keyboards.. that's probably why!
 
Originally posted by DannyZR2
The pro keyboards up until now had an eject key on them right??? well which optical drive will it control???

Perhaps, and this is what I think, perhaps this is the reason apple discontinued the current pro keyboard, to introduce one that has 2 eject buttons on it, one for each drive.. it makes sense, since they are probably gonna ship with new keyboards.. that's probably why!
Click to expand...

the new keyboard with 2 eject keys..maybe, but there not shipping currently with these new power macs other wise the apple store would have mentioned it.
 
Plextor

As you can tell I like the companies that have been there from the beginning and claim to have the best audio reproduction {no pops,cracks} and who assemble thier own units.
I like the plextor 40-12-40a just 4 meg buffer
itunes support with plugin {May not be needed}
disc burner support
they actually mention mac on the box
Probably the best support after the sale after yamaha, if it dosent work within a year send it in get a replacement
just way overpriced
about $120 at www.newegg.com

The Yamaha is outrageosly priced!!!
I think its like $170
But it is the only one that has laser printing direct to cd, the only one with "Mac updateable" firmware on thier sites blue L.E.D.,
and the only one that can be had with mac software and support that I know of.
I bought the plextor, much quieter than my friends Lite on ($60)
But the lite-on is slightly faster. We are only talking seconds between 40x-48x.
I have a yamaha 6*4*16 external scsi cdrw from years ago and it still works great excellant construction and no coasters even without burn proof because of the big buffer 4 or 8 meg and the slow burn speed.
another solution would be a dvd/cdrw like the Samsung 16xdvd 32x10x40xcdrw for $129 at best buy i read some success stories with that at www.xlr8yourmac.com. and its no more than a half a minute slower than the 40's
I think lite-on is the best buy they make the insides of most low priced drives{cedyne, buslink,tdk ithink, etc.etc. and for $40-$70 retail you cant go wrong.
 
Re: Plextor

Originally posted by daveg5
As you can tell I like the companies that have been there from the beginning and claim to have the best audio reproduction {no pops,cracks} and who assemble thier own units.
I like the plextor 40-12-40a just 4 meg buffer
itunes support with plugin {May not be needed}
disc burner support
they actually mention mac on the box
Probably the best support after the sale after yamaha, if it dosent work within a year send it in get a replacement
just way overpriced
about $120 at www.newegg.com

The Yamaha is outrageosly priced!!!
I think its like $170
But it is the only one that has laser printing direct to cd, the only one with "Mac updateable" firmware on thier sites blue L.E.D.,
and the only one that can be had with mac software and support that I know of.
I bought the plextor, much quieter than my friends Lite on ($60)
But the lite-on is slightly faster. We are only talking seconds between 40x-48x.
I have a yamaha 6*4*16 external scsi cdrw from years ago and it still works great excellant construction and no coasters even without burn proof because of the big buffer 4 or 8 meg and the slow burn speed.
another solution would be a dvd/cdrw like the Samsung 16xdvd 32x10x40xcdrw for $129 at best buy i read some success stories with that at www.xlr8yourmac.com. and its no more than a half a minute slower than the 40's
I think lite-on is the best buy they make the insides of most low priced drives{cedyne, buslink,tdk ithink, etc.etc. and for $40-$70 retail you cant go wrong.
Click to expand...

The 32x combos are pretty cool, especially considering most CD burners won't burn audio CDs at speeds high than 24x. You're right, the difference between a 40-48x burn and a 32x burn is negligible. And yeah, I think the Samsung 32x combo has an 8MB buffer and some kind of buffer underrun protection.

But personnally I'm thinking I'll buy the Teac 40x burner. It's got an 8MB buffer with Sanyo's BURN-Proof, and I can get it for about $70 (no rebates). I won't need another DVD drive if I've already got one built-in, especially since you can't (easily... or legally) copy DVDs. With iTunes support (which I know a lot of combos aren't supported) and fast, reliable burns it seems like a good choice. Plus you can get it in black. Though I hope it's quieter than my old (ugh) Ricoh.

Lite-On is okay. Fast, but cheap and noisy. Plextors also fast, but yes, way too expensive. I was considering the Yamaha with it's 24x CD-R/W and cool new features, but that's really expensive. BTW, TDK is not cheap. Good software (for the PC), fast, but not a lot of Mac support. So many choices, I'll probably barely even use it. I'll test it in my PC first.

I'm definitely not paying over $200 for the 16x10x32 combo drive Apple is offering for the second bay.

Anybody know what brand that is?
 
i have a 16x LG DVD Rom drive, would it work fine with a powermac, and would i have to get software in order for it to work or something?
 
What's the point of spending the money for fast optical drive, when you'll hobble it with a slow ATA-33 interface?
 
umm because even at the maximum speed of say a 16x DVD (which you'll almost never get), you're only using 19mb/s of bandwidth and that is far below the 33mb/s of UATA 33. Besides, the new powermacs have UATA 100 and optical drives don't exactly use ATA, they use a derivative of ATA called ATAPI.
 
i believe option eject will open the second drive... i know it's a key and eject at the same time. someone else posted that they saw it on apple's site, i just can't remember where....

so it'll be fine
 
Originally posted by topicolo
umm because even at the maximum speed of say a 16x DVD (which you'll almost never get), you're only using 19mb/s of bandwidth and that is far below the 33mb/s of UATA 33. Besides, the new powermacs have UATA 100 and optical drives don't exactly use ATA, they use a derivative of ATA called ATAPI.
Click to expand...

Hey isn't 16x, times 150k? So its actually a little under 3 mb's isn't it? I started back in the old days :) with a 2x burner and I thought that what the times thing was about.
Daniel
 
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