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Best alternative to Apple SuperDrive for a Mac Mini?

D

DGord

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 25, 2015
24
0
Though I probably will not use it much, I want an external optical drive to import CDs to iTunes, burn DVDs (Blu-Rays???) of home movies and from time to time burn photos and music to disk. It will not be used to watch movies.

Any good recs? Should I buy a blu-ray drive? Read about a good Samsung Blu-ray drive for around $80 but then there are also some good non Blu-ray drives for quite a bit less.

Thanks!
 
Last edited:
To Bluray or Not to Bluray....

Either one would be a good choice, and with the way movies are going I would suggest going ahead and getting a bluray drive, even if you don't think you'll watch movies on it. They are not that expensive and it will still burn DVDs and CDs. Blurays also are a lot more scratch resistant and will last longer for your home movies, and if you upgrade to a higher resolution camera in the future you'll be covered. You can get a bluray writer such as the Samsung SE-506CB/RSBD on amazon from $80, which is the same price as the Apple superdrive, and it also uses the one usb cable for everything. Any Bluray burner from a known good manufacturer will work on Mac with a third party burning software such as Toast. Look for a Samsung, ASUS, or LG. If you choose the DVD Burner, you can find those for around $30 and that will keep you going until you feel the need to venture into the world of Bluray
 
chogue23 said:
To Bluray or Not to Bluray....

Either one would be a good choice, and with the way movies are going I would suggest going ahead and getting a bluray drive, even if you don't think you'll watch movies on it. They are not that expensive and it will still burn DVDs and CDs. Blurays also are a lot more scratch resistant and will last longer for your home movies, and if you upgrade to a higher resolution camera in the future you'll be covered. You can get a bluray writer such as the Samsung SE-506CB/RSBD on amazon from $80, which is the same price as the Apple superdrive, and it also uses the one usb cable for everything. Any Bluray burner from a known good manufacturer will work on Mac with a third party burning software such as Toast. Look for a Samsung, ASUS, or LG. If you choose the DVD Burner, you can find those for around $30 and that will keep you going until you feel the need to venture into the world of Bluray
Click to expand...

Thanks for the comments. You mention the need for third party software for the a Blu-ray drive - is that for any use or just burning to the blu-ray format (if that is even possible)? I do want to try to keep it simple and burn through the Apple programs whether music or an iMovie, etc.

Can regular format be burned onto a blu-ray disk but just in greater length whether for music or home movies? That would be nice.... Just don't know much about it.
 
The third party software would only be used to burn bluray discs. You can still use iTunes or iDVD to burn a DVD or CD on a Bluray drive.

The Bluray disc would be able to burn a much longer movie disc than a dvd would, and would support HD content. DVDs cap at 480p with a length of about 2 hours of content for a single layer disc or 4 hours with a dual layer disc. A Bluray will support 720p or 1080p, which means a better picture quality, and hold about 4.5 hours of 720p content or 16 hours at standard definition. 1080p video is much higher quality and will fill up the larger disc with the same 2 hours of content that a DVD would use. Those times are for a single layer disc and will double with a dual layer disc.

If you are using it for data backup, a dvd will hold 4.7GB of data and a bluray will hold 25GB. You don't see it as much for music because most people wouldn't want 6000 songs all on the same disc except for backup, but that choice is up to you.
 
DGord said:
Though I probably will not use it much, I want an external optical drive to import CDs to iTunes, burn DVDs (Blu-Rays???) of home movies and from time to time burn photos and music to disk. It will not be used to watch movies.

Any good recs? Should I buy a blu-ray drive? Read about a good Samsung Blu-ray drive for around $80 but then there are also some good non Blu-ray drives for quite a bit less.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

I bought this bare drive...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E7B08MS/ref=cm_sw_su_dp

Then i dropped it into a USB 3 case from new egg. Its a big ugly black case but it does the job.

Then I found this nice one that I would get if doing all over again...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ACOQF2Q/ref=cm_sw_su_dp

The nice thing is both drives support M-Disc blue ray discs. They are supposed to last 1000 years. No one will ever know will they? I bought a spindle of these disks to archive my photo collection for long term storage. Worked great. I used toast version 12 for burning software.
 
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donlab said:
I bought this bare drive...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E7B08MS/ref=cm_sw_su_dp

Then i dropped it into a USB 3 case from new egg. Its a big ugly black case but it does the job.

Then I found this nice one that I would get if doing all over again...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ACOQF2Q/ref=cm_sw_su_dp

The nice thing is both drives support M-Disc blue ray discs. They are supposed to last 1000 years. No one will ever know will they? I bought a spindle of these disks to archive my photo collection for long term storage. Worked great. I used toast version 12 for burning software.
Click to expand...

Why not just buy one of these slim ones? http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-SE-50...427359325&sr=1-2&keywords=samsung+blu+ray+usb
 
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I use a miniStack Max. It has the same form factor and aluminum exterior as the Mini, so they look great "stacked"

I popped in a slimline blu ray player and a 4tb HD into the bare drives kit, perfect compliment to my home media setup :D

http://www.newertech.com/products/ministackmax.php

nwt_ministack_max_gall5.jpg
 
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