I just bought a Blue-ray drive, and have been debating whether to retain the original DVD writer that came with the MP and move it to the second optical bay, or whether to remove it and use the bay for something else (SSDs etc). My question is for those who use two optical drives - what uses do you put them too? I don't know what benefit they would give me, but I perhaps don't know some of the advantages.
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Dual optical drives: what to you use them for?
- Thread starter NoManIsland
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I use my Blu drive for watching movies, natch
Kept the old DVD drive though.
No real point in using the optical drive bay for an SSD or HDD unless you've already filled up the 4 bays and still need to add more drives. It just limits your expansion options to do that when you still have free bays available.
Kept the old DVD drive though.
No real point in using the optical drive bay for an SSD or HDD unless you've already filled up the 4 bays and still need to add more drives. It just limits your expansion options to do that when you still have free bays available.
2 optical bays makes copying disks simpler, because you can put the original in one, and the blank in the other. Other than that I don't really know...
I think the second optical bay is the first thing to get axed in the next redesign/retouch of the case. Perhaps in favor of two official 2.5" bays for SSDs?
I'd rather hope for four additional 3.5" bays where the 2nd ODD bay is now.
Side-note: When the Mac Pro came out, everybody cheered since it had/has 2 ODD bays in contrast to the one in the PowerMac G5. But I guess times have changed and people just don't work with DVDs as much as they did back then.
Back when I built my own PCs I would have two optical drives, I would set one to DVD region 4 for local DVDs and one to region 1 for US DVDs so I could get around region locks. The other thing I would do is keep the disk for my most played game disk in one drive at all times and swap disk in the other drive.
These days tho with software to get around region locks on computers and it being illegal for manufactures to sell a DVD player with a region lock in Australia, and most games not needing a disk in the drive because of Steam or other online authentication I don't see a need for two optical drives. The Mac Pro I ordered has one drive and I'm using the spare optical bay for a Intel 3G SSD when they come out.
These days tho with software to get around region locks on computers and it being illegal for manufactures to sell a DVD player with a region lock in Australia, and most games not needing a disk in the drive because of Steam or other online authentication I don't see a need for two optical drives. The Mac Pro I ordered has one drive and I'm using the spare optical bay for a Intel 3G SSD when they come out.
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I've had up to three optical drives in a computer before. I figure when I get a new drive there's no point in pulling the old one. If I have to store it somewhere I might as well store it right in the computer where it might have some small purpose.
Other than what's already been mentioned, I've also ripped my CD collection faster by using all three drives at once. To do this you do need ripping software that can run multiple instances.
I don't see any need for multiple drives these days though. My CD collection is ripped, so that's done. I don't copy optical discs any more. With Steam, and a lot of modern games, I don't need discs to start games.
All I can think of now is to keep it in there as a backup. Maybe one drive will have a problem, in which case you'll have another to try out immediately and fall back to.
Other than what's already been mentioned, I've also ripped my CD collection faster by using all three drives at once. To do this you do need ripping software that can run multiple instances.
I don't see any need for multiple drives these days though. My CD collection is ripped, so that's done. I don't copy optical discs any more. With Steam, and a lot of modern games, I don't need discs to start games.
All I can think of now is to keep it in there as a backup. Maybe one drive will have a problem, in which case you'll have another to try out immediately and fall back to.
I use the stock drive for burning to DVD, and an LG Blu-ray drive in the second bay to burn BD-R discs. I have no idea if it really matters, but I figure it might be better to use a specific drive to burn a specific disc based on its primary design.
Maybe that's a bit of insanity showing.
Maybe that's a bit of insanity showing.
Mac Pros are great for multi tasking so having two optical drives means you can be reading or writing data to one whilst doing something else. I often play a game that needs the disc in the drive or import a CD into iTunes whilst copying data from the other drive. Given how cheap optical drives are it was worth it.
ripit unofficially works with two drives
if I find a fast DVD I might add one so that I can rip through my dvd collection faster.
if I find a fast DVD I might add one so that I can rip through my dvd collection faster.
I have two optical drives in my Mac Pro. One is dedicated to the VMware Fusion virtual machine that runs Windows 24/7. The other, I leave for OS X.