Superdrive not so super?

[luffx]

Howdy all,

First off, let me just say I'm not trying to incite a riot or flame-war...

I'm considering purchasing the new 27" iMac. I noticed the ODD specs look similar to the Powerbook G4 I had 3+ years ago...

Slot-loading 8x SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)

* Writes DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL discs at up to 4x speed
* Writes DVD-R and DVD+R discs at up to 8x speed
* Writes DVD-RW discs at up to 6x speed and DVD+RW discs at up to 8x speed
* Reads DVDs at up to 8x speed
* Writes CD-R discs at up to 24x speed
* Writes CD-RW discs at up to 16x speed
* Reads CDs at up to 24x speed

I was a little peeved to see that Apple isn't implementing a BR-Drive. But oh well, I can get over that. However, I noticed the speeds leave much to be desired. 24x CD? 8x DVD? I remember thinking how slow it was to write data on the Powerbook compared to my home-built machine; should I still anticipate this? Does Apple have a vendor-contract? Is it b/c they are slim/slot-load drives?

thanks!
~Luf.

 

[ildondeigiocchi]

Yup it's not really that "SUPER" after all. However you can buy an external DVD burner that writes at 20X speeds for very cheap. I strongly recommend you buy one.

 

[CubeHacker]

The iMac uses a slot loading drive which is basically a laptop drive. Because they are so thin, they speeds that the drive can physically spin the disc are much lower compared to the larger drives that you typically find in a tower case. Thus, the speeds are much lower.