Apple's Old-School SuperDrive Is Out of Stock and Unlikely to Return

[Apple Mac Daz]

Even works with Windows 11 if you get the driver for it

 

[bradman83]

Old-school is right, given how it still used USB 2.0

From a purely speed perspective USB 2.0 is fine for most CD and DVD drives, especially slimline models which tend to be slower than full size drives. Even full size drives rarely approach a speed that would max out a USB 2.0 connection. Blu Ray drives can benefit from USB 3.0 or higher. If anything that just shows how slow optical media is!

 

[switz]

My M1 MacStudio sits on top of mine. Have used it several times. We have lots of "backup" CDs with photos on them.

It does not cost me anything to have it plugged into one of the two USB-A ports. I have several in the office and even a new one in the OEM box.

Was digging thru a box recently and found a round Apple mouse. Remember those?

 

[yayarod]

I have one connected to a 2017 iMac.
Occasionally use it:

• Ripping Audio CD (Apple lossless)
• Accessing legacy software.. both Mac and Windows

Same use here. 👍🏼 Still necessary for digitalizing my CD collection. And for older stuff also - fonts CDs, etc.

 

[The1Biz]

I bought a used one for $30 off eBay if I ever need one.

 

[canonical]

It's not aging - it's a beautiful simple elegant design that just works brilliantly.

 

[nathansz]

Crazy they were still selling these for $80 considering there’s plenty of optical drives in the $20-$30 range

 

[Remy149]

Still use mine. Thank goodness I still have a PC for doing actual work versus cupcakes and sprinkles’. 🙄

Most pcs lack a disk drive as well unless it’s a custom built rig

 

[AtomicDusk]

I still use my SuperDrive to this day, from time to time. While I've purchased maybe 75 digital movies, the vast majority of my collection is on DVD/4K Blu-Ray. I've abandoned buying digital media because the companies selling it can and will take these movies and TV shows from you whenever they please, or if they go bankrupt. I have enough movies and TV shows on DVD/4K Blu-Ray to last a lifetime. I rip them to Plex and then I can stream them from anywhere I have an internet connection.

I just started doing this and the DVD rips in Plex look awful by comparison. Do you know any places I could learn more about it?

 

[Remy149]

I have. Most of the subscription services I use add and remove media on a regular basis. Netflix is a big one. You might not have lost a song but are you sure you have never lost anything else digital from a service?

You don’t own Netflix content you are paying for a subscription. Any of their non original content and come and go at anytime. They are talking about digital content they directly paid for.

 

[Remy149]

This was always a weird device. It didn't work properly on Windows PCs unless you installed the Bootcamp driver kit, which was weird; Apple should have just used the standard USB optical drive driver that comes with every operating system.

Mine died years ago and I never bothered to replace it since I haven't used an optical disc in an age and a half.

Apple never cared if it worked with non Apple hardware. Buying it to use on a windows pc is a waste you better off buying a 3rd party drive for that

 

[krspkbl]

I’m surprised it has only just sold out. I haven’t used a Blu-ray in at least 11 years. 2005 for a DVD and I have no idea last time I used a CD.

I’d say Digital/streaming is the future but I’ve been all digital for the last decade or more lmao.

 

[macduke]

It's fine...There is really no reason to have a superdrive specifically anymore. I still do some burning (mainly m-disc)/reading occasionally, and just use a 3rd party external blu-ray drive. It even has USB-C without needing an adapter.

Any brand drive you buy will work fine with any Mac, including Apple Silicon.

I bought my grandpa one a couple years ago and he has been using it to burn discs to give to family out in the country of old videos from decades ago that he recorded at family gatherings and such. He is fairly tech savvy for someone in his 80s but a lot of the other people are not and do not have high speed internet available or have no internet at all, and it’s easy for them to pop in a disc and hit play.

 

[Remy149]

I have a large DVD/Blu-ray collection and quite a few of the items I own on disc are just not available on the main streaming services (I subscribe to Netflix, Disney+ and Prime Video). I'm glad I have the collection I do.

I also have a large CD collection but music streaming services are better so I don't use that much.

I own a lot of physical media. I still have every cd I’ve ever bought since I was a teenager. My collection is already ripped into my music library and I keep 2 separate backups on separate drives.

 

[sw1tcher]

Hm
Investors not happy with this news
AAPL down

Yeah. That's why Warren Buffet/Berkshire Hathaway sold almost half of their Apple position 👌

 

[Ctrlos]

I own a lot of physical media. I still have every cd I’ve ever bought since I was a teenager. My collection is already ripped into my music library and I keep 2 separate backups on separate drives.

Apple music is also not infallible and full of gaps in its library. iTunes Match still exists allowing you to upload your own tracks for streaming elsewhere. Thrift stores are a wonderful place to buy, rip and redonate CDs to fill these gaps.

I'd say a physical disc drive is a requirement for any real computer user. It allows you to maintain ownership of physical copies but couple the convenience of digital access without perpetually renting it from someone.

(Spotify has a smaller library and none of the MP3 features. I don't know why anybody bothers)

 

[reubs]

Psst...some of us still rip CDs because there's some stuff that's just not available digitally.

 

[Ad47uk]

I have a blueray burner on my PC, so don't really need the super drive, it is a bit of a pain if i want to burn something from the Mac, because I have not been able to share a folder from my Mac to the PC, no matter what I try.,

 

[minik]

I have a couple of these at home and at work. They did their job for more than a decade. Last year I bought myself a slim external USB-C Pioneer Blu-ray drive to replace the USB SuperDrive.

 

[skitidetdu]

Oh no… 😱 shock horror 😵‍💫😵

this is the oldest Apple gadget I have! And it works great still. But if it stops working I’d have to stop buying cds.. (yes I still do!)

Are others in the market compatible?

Many third party versions work well. I have a Samsung at work connected to my MacBook Air M1

 

[Dreamail]

Audio CDs seem to be making a small comeback of sorts as more people get fed up being force-fed randomly shuffled music by "algorithms" - while also more and more artists come back to the idea of "concept albums".

In a similar fashion people start to re-realize the value of actually owning physical DVD or Blu-ray media, instead of seeing their favorite shows constantly appearing and disappearing from the various online services, or when realizing that their "purchased" movies suddenly got removed as their online service had lost the license to these franchises.

I own an Apple SuperDrive and two Pioneer Blu-ray drives (different generations) and find it surprising that not all CDs and DVDs are equally playable on all of them.
One would expect that the latest technology drives would easily read all previous generation media - but that is not at all the case in my experience.
Some Audio CDs skip in both my Blu-ray drives, while working just fine in the slower Apple SuperDrive without any skipping. The same with some DVDs.
It seems that some manufactured CD and DVD discs are not happy with Blu-ray lasers, while working just fine with the SuperDrive. It is not commonly so, but I have about two or three dozen CDs and DVDs that work better in the SuperDrive. It was built like a tank it seems.

So people who suggest to just get one of the more modern and cheaper third-party drives instead, might actually be missing out.

At least I find it very valuable to have both an Apple SuperDrive and Pioneer Blu-ray drives.
And these drives work just fine with a USB-A to USB-C adapter dongle on modern Macs.

 

[PaulUKD]

Good. Just a warning for anyone who wanted one of these, you can’t even use them with an Apple Silicon Mac.
They just don’t work.

I used mine the other week (for the first time in many months) to get some data off an old CDROM and it worked fine on my MacBook Pro M2. I didn't do anything clever.

 

[PaulUKD]

I still have mine
Have not used it in years
Yet something about physical CD DVD attracts me to them
Wish I kept my old physical media collection
Was hoping they would become cool again

I've still got all my CDs and, whilst I've not used them for a long time, would be very reluctant to get rid of them! Somehow, seeing the actual media makes me remember the music better than just seeing a playlist.

 

[TinyMito]

Not missing it, it's so expensive compare to third parties.

I got a Pioneer drive, works wonderful and support more media types. Works on Windows, Linux etc.

 

[Feek]

I tried to use mine at the weekend to write a DVD. No matter what media I put in, it just reported everything as unwritable. I tried on both Mac Studio and my 2017 Intel iMac so that was frustrating.

It reads OK, it just doesn't write.

Has anyone been able to successfully write a CD or DVD using their Superdrive recently?