It's really loud when burning, and when it settles down it sounds like its vibrating. I held it in place with my hand while spinning and there is no difference. It has no operational issues, but the sucker is loud! Any one elses drive making a ruckus?
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Noisy DVD-RW (Early 2008 MP)
- Thread starter pfleischman
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Most DVD burners these days make appreciable noise...
That is ONE of the reasons that the drives in the iMac are so quiet... much much slower at just about everything.
I took a DVD/CDRW combo drive out of an old PC I used to have simply because it's one of the fastest ripping drives I've ever seen.
Sounds like a jet at takeoff.
You are not the only one.
The only things I hear from my MacPro are my Superdrive and my external FireWire Drive for TimeMachine.
The Machine itself is just about dead silent which makes these noisy components even more annoying.
I've found that if the disk is the slightest bit out of round (or off-center) it will shake and make noise like crazy. The first DVD I watched in my '08 MP made a fair bit of noise but the second disk I loaded spun up and ran a fair bit quieter. Apart from that, this thing is dead silent and I'm loving the quiet! 
Even importing...
yeah my drive is really loud, even when importing a CD. It'll import the first two songs on the CD dead silent, but as it's finishing the second one it starts rattling like mad and sounds like it will rip itself apart, I wonder if it is doing any damage...
yeah my drive is really loud, even when importing a CD. It'll import the first two songs on the CD dead silent, but as it's finishing the second one it starts rattling like mad and sounds like it will rip itself apart, I wonder if it is doing any damage...
Have been getting concerned over the noise the DVD drive makes. At start-up, any disk in the drive (DVD/CD) makes a loud vibrating noise for 1-2 minutes with an almost constant noise during disk activity. Surprising to have a noisy component in an otherwise silent machine. Have owned much cheaper machines with much quieter DVDr drives. What's up with that?
I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one with the most annoying SuperDrive. Good luck watching a movie in your mac pro if the tower is anywhere near your head. I installed a Samsung DVD burner (what a pain in the @$$ that was!), and it runs so much quieter than my Superdrive. Oh and BTW, my super drive is the Sony/NEC one, not pioneer.
Do not use a Mac for dvd burning, period.
If you do not mind drink coasters use the Mac.
Macs make horrible noises when burning. Wish they stuck with pioneer drives which are dead quiet when burning unlike liteon, lg, and sony.
I've been burning DVDs on my Mac for years and it works just fine. I have an external Pioneer DVD-RW drive.
Pioneer drives work well with Macs, however Mac stopped using Pioneer drives some time ago for other brands which are no where near as good and make these horrible sounds when burning.
Mines an Optiarc and works perfectly
It's a bit loud at full rpm, but just about everything, burning, ripping movies etc. cause the drive to spin the disk at a much lower rpm making it barely noticeable over the low humm of the rest of the system, installing software when i first got the machine was a rather loud experience though
As to macs being unreliable for burning... I've been using macs to burn disks since my 4X burner was rockin on SCSI, i've only managed to create 2 coasters
It's a bit loud at full rpm, but just about everything, burning, ripping movies etc. cause the drive to spin the disk at a much lower rpm making it barely noticeable over the low humm of the rest of the system, installing software when i first got the machine was a rather loud experience though
As to macs being unreliable for burning...
I've been using macs to burn disks since my 4X burner was rockin on SCSI, i've only managed to create 2 coasters
Don't use facts to prove him wrong, it'll make him look like he has no idea what he's talking about.
Apple did a DIY replacement on the Optiarc that came with my 2008 MP because it wouldn't even burn CDs. It was also the noisiest optical drive I've ever owned. They sent me a Pioneer 112D which is quiet and burns everything just fine. It even writes consistently to Office Depot branded CD-R blanks I bought 2 years ago, and to Maxell, Sony and Verbatim DVD-Rs.
I suspect that Optiarc has some quality control problems because most of the noise and burn failure complaints I've read concern their drives. Also, when I called AppleCare about the Optiarc they spent zero time attempting to isolate the problem. They immediately handed me off to a second-tier tech who only asked: "where do you want the DIY shipped to?"