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Need Blu Ray burner for 1st Gen Mac Pro

weez999

weez999

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 4, 2009
82
65
GA
I have a 1st generation MacPro with a Quad Xeon and 5 GB RAM. I need to get a blu ray burner. Does anyone out there know of a good quality burner that I can get for my machine? I've been looking online but I haven't been able to figure out which one is mac compatible. :confused:

Of course, price matters but yet, I don't want garbage. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks everyone
 
Get anything. You'll need an IDE to SATA converter or the technical knowledge to take your Mac Pro apart to get to the unused SATA ports on the motherboard.

You'll also need Toast to be able to actually use the Blu-ray drive to burn data disks.

And, as always, you can't watch movies.
 
Tallest Skil
I've seen SATA blue ray drives but you're saying any one will work with Mac? Fortunately, I have the tech knowledge to go ahead and install it and I also have toast already which is nice. Do you have any personal recommendations for a drive?

As for movie watching, that doesn't matter at this time but hopefully by the time the rumor of Apple supporting BR comes true, it will matter then I can watch!:D

Thanks for the reply.
 
The ODD bays in the Mac Pro are IDE and all Blu-ray drives are SATA, so you'll need an adapter of some sort. I have an LG GGW-H20L* (BD-RW and HD DVD) and OS X recognizes when I put a Blu-ray disk in even without Toast! It pops up "You've inserted a blank Blu-ray disk" and has the same menu as if you insert a blank DVD or CD.

It even mounts on the Desktop! Apple has an icon for Blu-ray disks (it looks just like the CD and DVD icons, but it has the Blu-ray logo on it)!

I didn't try to burn anything to it (I should have at least tried, though...), but supposedly you can't.

But, yeah, they're all compatible with OS X.

*That's an internal drive that I got for my future Mac Pro. I hooked it up to my MacBook Pro with an IDE-SATA adapter and that's how I was able to see the Blu-ray disk. I only did it once to make sure the drive worked properly, and it's packed away now, or I'd go do it again.
 
LG's GGW-H20L probably represents the best value for money right now. Somehow, it's cheaper than all the other drives and has the best burn speeds and even reads HD DVDs, not that that's relevant. Works great in my machine with Toast. Newegg and other e-tailers periodically do sales as well; when I bought it, I managed to get it for only $205 + tax.
 
How about the Plextor PX-B920UF?
It's an Mac compatible external Blu-ray rewriter with Firewire/USB 2.0 that also can read HD-DVD's.
 
Thanks for all the input guys. I did not realize that the internal drive connectors were IDE. I though it would all be SATA. I converted from PC a year and a half ago and have never had a need to open the case on any Mac I own because they WORK all the time! LOL I found that hardly a week went by that I didn't have to open a PC case for one reason or another. :eek:


Anyway, again, thanks for the info and I will move forward with what you guys recommended.
 
I see that someone has suggested that you buy an IDE to SATA converter, but i don't think that is your best option. the Mac Pro has extra SATA connections on the motherboard.
 
Tallest Skil said:
Hey, now! Some of us have HD DVDs to watch!

And $205? You can do better than that. I bought mine in March '07 for $327, but it was $100 on Newegg this holiday season.

Technology... go figure. :p
Click to expand...

I know which sale you're talking about - that was the GGC-H20L. That one's only BD-ROM. They ran the GGW-H20L at that price just after that sale, at the price I bought it at. Interestingly enough, that was a price low and it hasn't been cheaper yet. Can't yet get a burner for less than $200 new. Not just yet, but soon, I think. Despite all the doubters - and there are many - BDs and optical media are here to stay.
 
Another vote for the LG.

I bought mine in January last year. I am only now (December) able to burn blu ray. Do not use the SATA ports on the motherboard. They will not work. OS X recognised the drive and burnt discs, but it crashed Encore every single time I tried to load it with the drive installed. Adobe didn't know what the problem was.

Then I found this article. Works a treat now.

Get a IDE to SATA adapter. However. The ribbon isn't long enough to have both drives connected with the SATA adapter on, so you'll be down to one drive.
 
if the onboard sata ports are a bad idea and don't function well, why are they there? also a sata to ide adapter affect drive performance?
 
weez999 said:
if the onboard sata ports are a bad idea and don't function well, why are they there? also a sata to ide adapter affect drive performance?
Click to expand...

I got a SATA cable which had a 'L-shaped' connector at one end, I was able (through much fiddling and cursing) to get it connected to the motherboard without actually having to disassemble anything. I then carefully routed it up the back and into the optical bay and connected a SATA hard drive, which works 100% in Mac OS X. For some reason the spare motherboard SATA ports don't work in Windows but that really depends whether you want to use the drive with Boot Camp or not. For me, it wasn't important.

That would probably be a better bet than trying to get a SATA->IDE converter, at least the Blu-Ray drive would be talking to the computer the way it's designed to.
 
NATO said:
I got a SATA cable which had a 'L-shaped' connector at one end, I was able (through much fiddling and cursing) to get it connected to the motherboard without actually having to disassemble anything. I then carefully routed it up the back and into the optical bay and connected a SATA hard drive, which works 100% in Mac OS X. For some reason the spare motherboard SATA ports don't work in Windows but that really depends whether you want to use the drive with Boot Camp or not. For me, it wasn't important.

That would probably be a better bet than trying to get a SATA->IDE converter, at least the Blu-Ray drive would be talking to the computer the way it's designed to.
Click to expand...

You'd think so. That's how I had it connected originally. But as I said, it worked in OS X but would crash Encore, meaning I couldn't burn blu-ray. The adapter works a treat. No issues.
 
kingkezz said:
You'd think so. That's how I had it connected originally. But as I said, it worked in OS X but would crash Encore, meaning I couldn't burn blu-ray. The adapter works a treat. No issues.
Click to expand...

Good to know! Thanks for sharing that, I wouldn't have thought there would be any issues :)
 
Please back this up with a source!

Apple has stated that they are not meant for use(on board ODD PORTS) - Well, then why are they there? Where did Apple say this? Please back up your source, or don't post it at all!

besides, I got the odd ports to boot into windows on a 2008 mac pro.







kingkezz said:
Another vote for the LG.

I bought mine in January last year. I am only now (December) able to burn blu ray. Do not use the SATA ports on the motherboard. They will not work. OS X recognised the drive and burnt discs, but it crashed Encore every single time I tried to load it with the drive installed. Adobe didn't know what the problem was.

Then I found this article. Works a treat now.

Get a IDE to SATA adapter. However. The ribbon isn't long enough to have both drives connected with the SATA adapter on, so you'll be down to one drive.
Click to expand...
 
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