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What dual layer drive to buy?

neonart

neonart

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Sep 4, 2002
1,066
67
Near a Mac since 1993.
Im interested in upgrading my DVD burner in my G5 and would love to hear your suggestions on a good Dual Layer drive that is fully Apple supported. I've seen some reviews on xlr8yourmac, but they are a little iffy.

It appears the Sony DW-Q30A and a few others are the best bet.

Does anyone know what Apple is actually shipping?

Thanks!
 
homerjward said:
the pioneer dvr110 is about $35 and is the one in the current shipping power macs.
Click to expand...
Those are nice drives. They're also quieter (somewhat, not dramatically) than older Pioneer units.
 
iMeowbot said:
Those are nice drives. They're also quieter (somewhat, not dramatically) than older Pioneer units.
Click to expand...

Just put one in my Power Mac and it works great. Burned a single-layer DVD with like 3.8GB on it in 9 minutes. I burned a CDR in like 2 1/2 or something. Definitely a lot faster than the drive in my eMac was.
 
Pioneer drives are great.

I bought a Pioneer DVR-109 from OWC (macsales.com) almost a year ago and it works great. I burn everything from CDs to DL DVDs. Works great and install was easy. My pioneer 109 is recognized as Apple Shipped/Supported in System Profiler (and I have an older Sawtooth PM G4).

I recommend any of the Pioneer drives. They are inexpensive and work great with the Mac.
 
What I find interesting in so many xlr8yourmac.com reports is that a vast majority of drives will work, but are Apple "unsupported".

So which are these Apple "supported" drives and can they be purchased by mere mortals?

OWC sells the DVR-110D, but this too is Apple "unsupported". Apparently that last D is the troublemaker. :rolleyes:
 
All of the Pioneer drives up to the 109 are officially supported by Tiger. The 110(D) was expected to be added in the 10.4.4. update, but wasn't.

You can still use it though, with or without adding a Patchburn profile.

You can also flash the firmware on a 110D to make it a straight 110, which can write to DVD RAM.

And on the subject of firmware flashing, bear in mind that not all makes of drives are flashable on a Mac. Pioneer is, as I think are NEC and maybe one or two others.

Depends on if the manufacturer or some kind soul makes a flashing app that doesn't require Windoze.

Bottom line is, for compatibility Pioneer are great. They also burn well and are cheap :)
 
deebster said:
All of the Pioneer drives up to the 109 are officially supported by Tiger. The 110(D) was expected to be added in the 10.4.4. update, but wasn't.

You can still use it though, with or without adding a Patchburn profile.

You can also flash the firmware on a 110D to make it a straight 110, which can write to DVD RAM.

And on the subject of firmware flashing, bear in mind that not all makes of drives are flashable on a Mac. Pioneer is, as I think are NEC and maybe one or two others.

Depends on if the manufacturer or some kind soul makes a flashing app that doesn't require Windoze.

Bottom line is, for compatibility Pioneer are great. They also burn well and are cheap :)
Click to expand...

Very well, the Pioneer 110D it is. I'll flash it to a 110 and we're good to go!

Thank you all for your help and suggestions.
 
neonart said:
Very well, the Pioneer 110D it is. I'll flash it to a 110 and we're good to go!

Thank you all for your help and suggestions.
Click to expand...

Good choice.

FYI my G5 came with a Sony DVD RW DW-Q28A. It works well enough.
 
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