Best IDE Optical Drive for 2006 Mac Pro

[Tesselator]

Handy tip there about SMART, thanks.

meritline.com routinely has sales on various media, as does supermediastore.com. If you're willing to go with less well-known brands, it's cheaper. I haven't had an issue with one yet.

Yeah, most no-name media is about longevity so you won't know till 5 or 10 years in me thinks. By then you probably won't need that disk anyway.

And yeah, I have to take it back about the media price. I was easily able to find a spindle pack of fifteen 25 GB Maxell BRDs for $45. So that's like $3 each. And I guess maxell is good? <shrug>. So this is good news! Still $3 is a tad high. I want them for 50¢ each.

 

[TheStrudel]

I would say that we'll see $0.50 media, except that I think inflation will prevent it. Still, the prices will soon be well worth it. In all reality, this transition is happening faster than DVD did...and far faster than CD.

 

[nanofrog]

Yeah, the bulk focus of the Samsung comments I read in Japanese are ODD and HDD. And of course it's not going to happen to everyone 100% of the time.

Heck even detecting this trouble on my mac was not straight forward. There is only one app of the 6 or so commercial and free apps I own that read S.M.A.R.T. correctly. Other software reports no problems as shown below. And other than pressing your ear to the HDD 24/7 there's no other way to tell. I caught it by noticing that a beach-ball took too long on three separate occasions. So I tried every S.M.A.R.T. reader I had (about 5 or 6) and only one showed it.


BTW, the only one that works 100% is Smart Utility from Volitans Software.

Good to know. I wouldn't have realized that the SMART utils reported erroneous data. I imagine it drove you nutz to find this out.

 

[Tesselator]

Hmm. Having tested the SMART utility, I find it to indeed be comprehensive and worth using. All that comes up in my two year old 750 GB Samsungs is 142 reallocated bad sectors on one drive. Isn't that pretty much indicating that some sectors are bad and the drive is working well? Either way, a handy tip.

I'll confess to a preference for Samsung drives because I like their tech better. Been thinking about upgrading to F3s soon, what with the nice 500GB platter design.

Yeah, a relocated sector is a sector that suffered from an unrecoverable verify or read and was added to the drive's internal list of bad "don't use these" sectors. 142 on a two year old drive is a bit too many. For a 750GB HDD I would expect about 10 to 20 per year for the first 3 or so years and exponentially increasing after that. But yes after marked and relocated the drive will continue to operate otherwise normally.

BTW there are some utilities (on PC) that will remove those bad sectors from the list and retest them. You can often recover over half as often the errors were caused by particulate matter, humidity, vibration, or etc.

Good to know. I wouldn't have realized that the SMART utils reported erroneous data. I imagine it drove you nutz to find this out.

No. I already knew it. S.M.A.R.T. is just the numbers. It's the software that makes sense (or not) from the numbers it's given. Most S.M.A.R.T. apps mark this in terms of acceptability limits (% of max thresholds). They mostly do not consider up-time like SMART UTILITY does. It's up to the user to consider that in most other apps.

I would say that we'll see $0.50 media, except that I think inflation will prevent it. Still, the prices will soon be well worth it. In all reality, this transition is happening faster than DVD did...and far faster than CD.

Yeah, it sure is. Surprisingly fast. I'm surprised anyway.

 

[nanofrog]

Yeah, a relocated sector is a sector that suffered from an unrecoverable verify or read and was added to the drive's internal list of bad "don't use these" sectors. 142 on a two year old drive is a bit too many. For a 750GB HDD I would expect about 10 to 20 per year for the first 3 or so years and exponentially increasing after that. But yes after marked and relocated the drive will continue to operate otherwise normally.

That is high for a drive that's only 2yrs old.

BTW there are some utilities (on PC) that will remove those bad sectors from the list and retest them. You can often recover over half as often the errors were caused by particulate matter, humidity, vibration, or etc.

At least you have windows installed.

Have you attempted it yet?

No. I already knew it. S.M.A.R.T. is just the numbers. It's the software that makes sense (or not) from the numbers it's given. Most S.M.A.R.T. apps mark this in terms of acceptability limits (% of max thresholds). They mostly do not consider up-time like SMART UTILITY does. It's up to the user to consider that in most other apps.

I haven't ever looked at the OS X based utitlities, so I had no idea how elaborate they were, or weren't. Most people likely don't know how to interpret the data manually either.

Yeah, it sure is. Surprisingly fast. I'm surprised anyway.

As fast as file sizes are growing, it may soon be needed, rather than a luxury, even for simple stuff, not just 1080p.

 

[Tesselator]

At least you have windows installed.

Have you attempted it yet?

Yeah. I had Bootcamp Vista 64u up and going as well as Parallels with 4 or 5 OSs. Currently I don't tho. I wiped everything and am doing something different.

Most people likely don't know how to interpret the data manually either.

Yeah, exactly. And SMART UTILITY interprets it correctly by my (and industry) standards.

As fast as file sizes are growing, it may soon be needed, rather than a luxury, even for simple stuff, not just 1080p.

Yeah, but still not big enough. Just to back up a 500GB HDD we're going to need 40 of those disks. And how long do they take to write? 25min or something? That's 1,000 min. or about 16 hours. And even at $2.50 a disk that's $100.00 or about the same price as a 1TB HDD. I think TheStrudel has it right; they're only good for sending 10 or 20 GB via snail-mail. Of course if films start releasing on them as standard (over DVD) then they'll have an actually useful purpose - if you have a 15 foot TV.

 

[nanofrog]

Yeah. I had Bootcamp Vista 64u up and going as well as Parallels with 4 or 5 OSs. Currently I don't tho. I wiped everything and am doing something different.

Oooo... Experimentation. Do Tell.

Yeah, but still not big enough. Just to back up a 500GB HDD we're going to need 40 of those disks. And how long do they take to write? 25min or something? That's 1,000 min. or about 16 hours. And even at $2.50 a disk that's $100.00 or about the same price as a 1TB HDD. I think TheStrudel has it right; they're only good for sending 10 or 20 GB via snail-mail. Of course if films start releasing on them as standard (over DVD) then they'll have an actually useful purpose - if you have a 15 foot TV.

I wasn't thinking in terms of archiving an entire drive. Nothing's cheaper than mechanical drives in terms of cost/capacity, and optical can't dream of touching it speed wise either. Nothing.

I was actually thinking in terms of installation media for applications. Think fat, bloated, spaghetti code that's so big it can't even fit on a DL DVD anymore.

 

[TheStrudel]

Or content. Bear in mind that FCS comes on like, 6 DVDs now, 4 of which are dual layer. It could all be fit on say, a single BD-DL.

I hope Apps themselves never get that bloated, but anything that bundles content will start shipping it on BDs in a few years. Especially if they keep adding to all the livetype and soundtrack content.

I think you can already get stock footage on BDs, or at least request it as an option. After all, some people want high quality HD stock.

 

[Tesselator]

Yeah, I was thinking both of application distribution and user-user customer-user exchanges.

BTW, I too hope even the worst spaghetti code will never become 25 GB.


Experimentation: Nothing special just some work that I needed two 3-drive RAID0 volumes for. So that's all six SATA connections. It's a shame those connections can't daisy-chain like SCSI, SAS or even IDE.

 

[nanofrog]

I hope Apps themselves never get that bloated, but anything that bundles content will start shipping it on BDs in a few years. Especially if they keep adding to all the livetype and soundtrack content.

I can't help but think it will, given the quality of code lately. Too short a development period, not enough developers on the project to iron out all the kinks, and too much backwards compatibility. Then there's simple lazyness.

Yeah, I was thinking both of application distribution and user-user customer-user exchanges.

BTW, I too hope even the worst spaghetti code will never become 25 GB.

Well, if MS keeps up their status quo... , and worse, other developers are certainly following suit.

Experimentation: Nothing special just some work that I needed two 3-drive RAID0 volumes for. So that's all six SATA connections. It's a shame those connections can't daisy-chain like SCSI, SAS or even IDE.

Can't have everything.

 

[alphaod]

I'm curious with all these optical drives, how do you folks deal with the optical drive door clearance issue?

 

[UltraNEO*]

I'm curious with all these optical drives, how do you folks deal with the optical drive door clearance issue?

There's a issue? Why not just remove the tray end bit? it's just clipped on. If you look at Apple's there's a stick backed plastic thing, stuck on the end of the try, give it's that finished appearance.

 

[nanofrog]

I'm curious with all these optical drives, how do you folks deal with the optical drive door clearance issue?

I'm confused here. Could you elaborate on what you mean here?

There's a issue? Why not just remove the tray end bit? it's just clipped on. If you look at Apple's there's a stick backed plastic thing, stuck on the end of the try, give it's that finished appearance.

You mean the tray's end bezel?

Those come off, though how easily is arguable.

 

[Tesselator]

I'm confused here. Could you elaborate on what you mean here?


You mean the tray's end bezel?

Those come off, though how easily is arguable.

It's pretty easy if you look at it first before ripping at it. Just two little pressure points and it slips right off.

 

[nanofrog]

It's pretty easy if you look at it first before ripping at it. Just two little pressure points and it slips right off.

Some, if not most. Usually the bottom side there's a tab or two to be lifted, then tilt up. Off it comes, nothing broken.

But I had one that was thermally welded to the tray before (Phillips made transport IIRC). I've never forgotten the stupid thing either.

 

[UltraNEO*]

I'm confused here. Could you elaborate on what you mean here?

I think alphaod's just worried he'll damage his new machine..
I would be too, but for me, it's more likely to meet my screwdriver, torx, wrench and powertools, first.

You mean the tray's end bezel?

Those come off, though how easily is arguable.

Usually, add some leverage on the underside then slide it up.
Or, if you ain't sure, turn the drive over so you can see and examine the front bezel. Pioneer, Sony and Panasonic all unclip.
If there's a flappy door, then it's gonna be a matter of removing the springs and the clip on plastic cover...
Philips however, you'll have to dismantle the unit to get at some of the clips.

 

[nanofrog]

I think alphaod's just worried he'll damage his new machine..
I would be too, but for me, it's more likely to meet my screwdriver, torx, wrench and powertools, first.

You're as bad as I am.

Though for cuts in side panels (vents), I'd opt for a machine shop. I've done some hacks that worked, but man were they ugly. Used, cheap cases that didn't matter, but with a nice one, I'll pay to have it done right.

Usually, add some leverage on the underside then slide it up.
Or, if you ain't sure, turn the drive over so you can see and examine the front bezel. Pioneer, Sony and Panasonic all unclip.
If there's a flappy door, then it's gonna be a matter of removing the springs and the clip on plastic cover...
Philips however, you'll have to dismantle the unit to get at some of the clips.

Most aren't that hard. See above post.

 

[Nadav35]

Ok, AHCI now working!!

Hello,

I have a 2008 Mac Pro and now that I got AHCI to work in Windows 7 I am now ready to get two SATA dual superdrives. Ok, what do I need to do in order to get the dual sata superdrives to work in my mac pro? What kind of cables do I need to accomplish this? Can't I just order a SATA cable that the 2009 mac pro uses and connect it to the ODD port? In other words, now that I got AHCI to work in windows, how do I go about installing two dual sata superdrives in place of the PATA? Anyone??

 

[Nadav35]

Well, with AHCI now installed

One thing to consider is the Mac OD booting capability. Only 2009 models will boot from SATA. All other Macs will only accept PATA and USB. But as I said a little SATA->IDE or SATA->USB adapter will take care of that.

I can confirm that with a sata optical drive connected to the ODD-PORT on the board, it will BOOT into OS X. Now, that I have AHCI in windows 7, it can now boot in windows 7.

 

[gugucom]

Yep, other sources confirmed today that the 2008 model will boot ODD from SATA. A pleasant surprise. It would have swayed me to a 2008 model and saved me 2000€ had I known it earlier. But then I had never done this crazy W5590 project.

The 2008 uses two plain old SATA cables from the logic board ODD SATA ports. You thread them through the bulk head hole and your biggest problem is the space under the PCIe fan unit. I did make a cut out in the plastic housing of the fan unit with a metal saw for convenience there. Power will be a Molex -> SATA adapter.

If you want to fit two ODD SATA drives pick at least one Blu-Ray for flexibility. The LG units are fairly cheap, particularly in ROM spec. Burners of course are a bit more. The ROMs will also burn DVD-DL.

 

[nanofrog]

Yep, other sources confirmed today that the 2008 model will boot ODD from SATA. A pleasant surprise. It would have swayed me to a 2008 model and saved me 2000€ had I known it earlier. But then I had never done this crazy W5590 project.

The 2008 uses two plain old SATA cables from the logic board ODD SATA ports. You thread them through the bulk head hole and your biggest problem is the space under the PCIe fan unit. I did make a cut out in the plastic housing of the fan unit with a metal saw for convenience there. Power will be a Molex -> SATA adapter.

If you want to fit two ODD SATA drives pick at least one Blu-Ray for flexibility. The LG units are fairly cheap, particularly in ROM spec. Burners of course are a bit more. The ROMs will also burn DVD-DL.

EFI64 firmware to the rescue.

 

[gugucom]

EFI64 firmware to the rescue.

I confess it was an emotional decision in the end. I wanted EFI64 and ODD SATA booting badly. The 2008 quad looks like a very interesting option for a nice upgrade exercise.

 

[nanofrog]

I confess it was an emotional decision in the end. I wanted EFI64 and ODD SATA booting badly. The 2008 quad looks like a very interesting option for a nice upgrade exercise.

To me, the EFI64 and ODD_SATA ports boot capable, isn't just an "emotional" issue. It's practical.

The differences between the '08 and '09's are fairly small, and IMO, the intentional hinderances and higher costs of the '09's, make the '08's a much better value (cost/performance).

The '09's will surpass the the '08's once there's enough software that can utilize the new/changed/additional features of the architecture. But that's going to be awhile.

IIRC, you didn't know the '08 would do everything you expected it to did you (namely the boot capability of the ODD ports)? Or was it something else that steered you to the '09?

 

[gugucom]

IIRC, you didn't know the '08 would do everything you expected it to did you (namely the boot capability of the ODD ports)? Or was it something else that steered you to the '09?

You are right, I did not know the the 2008 MP would boot ODD from SATA. On top I stumbled across the W5590 engineering samples at a nice price.

 

[nanofrog]

You are right, I did not know the the 2008 MP would boot ODD from SATA. On top I stumbled across the W5590 engineering samples at a nice price.

Yeah, IIRC, you did get a good deal with those.

BTW, any issues related to errata shown up at all?