Drives compatable with MAC

[GGROD]

I am wanting to purchase a DVD burner but I cannot find any reasonable prices for Firewire/USB 2.0 external burners. I am thinking I could buy an IDE drive (internal) and put it in an external enclosure. But now I am concerned about compatability. I'm interested in the NEC ND-2510A DVD±RW. But I am not sure, if I make this external, if I will have problems.

Any suggestions?

[Ladd]

Roxio Toast is the premier application for the Mac that many folks use for burning DVDs. It is especially useful if you wish to use an external DVD burner.

A quick check of the Roxio site should turn up a list of Toast-compatible drives; if the NEC drive you wish to use is on it, most likely it will work fine for your setup.

Also, the website Accelerate Your Mac! has a large database of user reports on numerous Mac models paired with various and sundry drives. There is a good chance someone else has tried the NEC drive and reported their results.

[GGROD]

On the Accelerate Your Mac! site the driver used was "Mac Hacked". I'm not sure what this means. Then in the comments the users used Patchburn II. Is Patchburn the driver used?

[dotpuppy]

Well, personally, I would stick with drives that are known to work well with the mac. ESBuy has stock of the Pioneer 107 in a FW/USB2 case for $195 shipped, including a piece of 8x media (brand unspecified). That doesn't seem like a bad deal to me.

http://www.esbuy.com/pidv8xexusfo.html

[decay]

this is from another Mac forum:

Patchburn 1.1/X.2.8/NEC 2510
Author: Rxx Axxxx (---.---.---.---)
Date: 06-10-04 12:35

I found the option to restore the original drivers (under "advanced"). Then I re-applied the patch to the only NEC driver with a model #. Now ASP shows the drive as "fully supported" for disc burning!

The driver I patched was for a NEC *CD-RW* drive, not a DVD +/- R/RW drive so I'm not sure if this will work for DVDs, I'll get to try this out soon.

dk

[galactica]

Well, personally, I would stick with drives that are known to work well with the mac. ESBuy has stock of the Pioneer 107 in a FW/USB2 case for $195 shipped, including a piece of 8x media (brand unspecified). That doesn't seem like a bad deal to me.

http://www.esbuy.com/pidv8xexusfo.html

this is probably the best deal i have seen so far. In conjunction with toast you should have no problems using this external drive

[decay]

not sure if it still works, but the code GEEK99 cuts the price of this $199 external DVD burner down to $99.

http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=CDICD00237
CenDyne 4x DVD±RW Dual DVD/CDRW Ext USB 2.0/Firewire Drive
(Toast 6 recommended/not included).

[ deleted Fantom link & description ]

dk

[terryj]

Stay away from Fantom branded products.
I have $14K worth of RAID enclosed drives
that are nothing but paperweights,
( all purchased in 2000) and their customer
support is worse than Wal-mart at Christmas time.

Better if you are not mechanically inclined,
to buy something branded by Lacie, Cendyne,
Pioneer, TDK, or even HP.

But if you can at least turn a screw, you can
buy and build your own external -107
for dirt cheap. Here's what I did:

Pioneer DVR-107 dirt cheap ($83.00)
http://store.yahoo.com/hoct12/1178.html
mention pricewatch for $4 off

plus:

ADS Dual Link Combo Drive kit $86

http://www.zones.com/cgi-bin/zones/site/product/index.html?id=000662964

Total price: $169

or if you want FW only:
PYRO 1394 FireWire External Storage Cabinet $80
http://www.zones.com/cgi-bin/zones/site/product/index.html?id=000221666

Total Price: $163

plus no rebates.

[decay]

FireWire only enclosures are cheaper than that.

http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=ME-320F
$43 here.

FW/USB2.0:
http://www.pcmicrostore.com/PartDetail.aspx?q=c:36232;p:10501312
$62 here.

both can probably be found cheaper if you try.
FireWire is far superior to USB 2.0, IMHO.

dk

[terryj]

Better to READ the fine Print Decay:

from your URL:
http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=ME-320F
$43 here.

*Support for MAC OS 8.6 or better

Often means that the bridge built into these drives is of the old
Oxford Chipset, and will probably not be compatible under
Panther (OS X).

Better to stick with a name branded case, to insure firmware
compatiblity with OS X 's FW drivers. ADS, LaCie, OWC....

[decay]

you mean the fine print like this?

Oxford Semiconductor OXFW911-TQ-A chipset

i see the Oxford 911 bridge there.

i own one of these cases, works fine with OS X (10.2 and 10.3).

dk

[terryj]

Did it natively work ( recognize) on install, or did you have to Patchburn it? How does it show in System Profiler...as Supported or as
DRDeviceSupportLevelUnsupported?

[Lobe]

avoid Compgeeks! they are the worst, i had a defective FW case from them, it took over a week to get back to me, all sales are final on there closeout/refurb junk! RUN!!

ESbuy.com is shady as well they were recently selling FAKE Maxell media, I asked them about it, no response, yet, they kept listing it as Maxell.

try http://www.cooldrives.com/
http://www.macsales.com/
http://www.dealsonic.com/exen.html

or just do a google search, many have the exact same cases named differently, lots of generic cases now.

[jaytbird]

Here's what I did:
Had a Yamaha 24X CD-RW external firewire burner. Bought a Pioneer DVR-106 on eBay for $65. Removed the CD-RW unit from the Yamaha enclosure, popped in the Pioneer, and Voila! Instant DVD burner. No software hacks, no hardware mess. Use Toast to burn DVD's, or CD's right from iTunes.
Terry, this enclosure also shows as using the Oxford 911 bridge and using it with my TiBook and OS X 10.3 is fine as well as my wife's old Wallstreet under OS 9.1. No patchburn, and the System profiler shows as supported.
I do recall hearing of some folks having problems with the Oxford chipset, but I haven't experienced any.

[chikanakan]

Lacie's new external burner uses the NEC 2510A and ships with a version of Toast Titanium that supports DVD+R DL.

http://lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10032

The NEC drive is the best dual layer burner out right now and the DVD's burned on it have good pcompatiblity on the Mac, PC and set top DVD Players.

[miksu]

Lacie's new external burner uses the NEC 2510A and ships with a version of Toast Titanium that supports DVD+R DL.

I'm using my Nec ND-2500A with support file I downloaded from Lacie's website. System profiler lists it "supported" and iApps disk burning is supported.

Patchburn is able to support almost any internal drive. It works well with ND-2500A, should work with ND-2510 too, 'cause PB makes simple query to drive ("gimme name string") and creates required support file with name string and maybe other including capablities (speed, etc).

Lacie uses Pioneer and Nec drives, as far as you have drive that is also used by Lacie, you are likely to get required support file from their site

[AntnyMD]

The NEC drive is the best dual layer burner out right now and the DVD's burned on it have good pcompatiblity on the Mac, PC and set top DVD Players.

I just picked up one of these dual layer burners... I'm just pleased to be able to burn at 4x now ... I was a 1x man for more than a year. Now if I can find dual layer media for a reasonable price...

This burner was available via a link on Apple's Hot Deals page (http://hotdeals.apple.com) at the vendor ClubMac for $199. There was an instant rebate of $5, and next day Saturday shipping was $30 (same as ground shipping that would take forever).

[thoughton]

I just picked up one of these dual layer burners... I'm just pleased to be able to burn at 4x now ... I was a 1x man for more than a year. Now if I can find dual layer media for a reasonable price...

Let us know how that goes will ya? Both the hunt for media and the drive's performance. Is it 2.4x speed for DL burning?

Cheers,