[chasg]

Hi All,

well, my OEM Pioneer DVD-R drive has died (It was in internal version that I bought 1 year and two months ago, and put into my G4).

Now I'm forced to get a new one, and have decided that an external one would be most convenient (to run on my G4, iBook, B&W G3, beige G3 etc). I've done a search here and found that it's likely that some Apple apps won't work with an external drive under 10.3.x, but I can deal with that (there is a patch to let me burn to the drive with iTunes, I believe, which is the only Apple app I burn from, otherwise it's Toast 6).

I'd love to hear opinions on drives to purchase. Firewire is a must, it'd be nice to have USB as well (for when I might lend the drive to firewire-less friends). I still have a stack (about 50) of 4x media, but an 8x drive is probably a good idea to get. Any other features to keep my eye out for? (I'm assuming that every drive has buffer underun protection by now, my old CD-burner does not and it's a pain!)

I'm not even close to knowing which format is winning the "war" (DVD-R, or DVD+R?), should I not restrict myself to a DVD-R/W drive, but get one that will write to + media as well? (will + eventually eclipse - media, or is looking like it's the other way around?).

Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Chas

[Fozz_uk]

While I can't comment on Mac compatibility (I'm still waiting for new PB's before I buy) I'm a big fan of my Lacie CD-RW. It's quick and reliable, is OSX compatible and came with Toast Lite in the box.

Hopefully their DVD burner drives would be of a similar standard...

http://www.lacie.com/uk/products/range.htm?id=10014

[chasg]

Hi Fozz_uk, thanks for such a quick reply!

LaCie was definitely my first port of call when I went looking for drives (I've got an old LaCie CD-R burner already, which, like you, I've always been happy with).

I've got my eye on the "LaCie 4.7Gb d2 DVD-/+ RW - 8x4x24". Too bad the portable version doesn't burn at 8x! (those d2 cases are really heavy, I've got a d2 hard drive).

I just thought I'd write in here to see if any other brands had proven themselves as the "one to get".

Thanks again!

Chas

[Fozz_uk]

You're right about the d2's weight, my CD-RW has that design, it weighs a ton and is almost a foot long! That's not really a problem for me since I've never felt the need to move it, but, yeah, if I ever need portability I'm stuffed.

I'm actually thinking of getting a d2 hard drive (around the 120GB mark, it'll sit nicely on top of the CD drive). Does your one work well etc..?

[SSharon]

Don't rule out buying the case and hard drive separately. You can get a nice firewire/usb 2 case and a nice NEC drive ($100) from newegg.com. I read some of the reviews of the drive and nearly everyone had praise for it including one person who put it in a firewire case and uses it with their PB running panther.

[Kenneth]

Can you tell us how it becomes malfunctioning?

I purchased a black OEM Pioneer DVR-106D a month ago and put it into my FW800. Everything works fine.

Nowadays, most DVD burners are mult-format. 2MB vs 8MB buffer is not that critical I thing on burner since the Burn-Proof (or similar marketing terms) will handle it. For external solution, you may lose the ability to use iDVD. 4x vs. 8x.. you can get a bare bone 8x DVD burner under $200.. but where is the good 8x media? Since you have a PowerMac, I think internal would be nicer.

[chasg]

SSharon, Kenneth and Fozz_uk, thanks for replying.

SSharon, marrying a cheap internal drive with a case is a great idea, and one that I'm considering (too bad newegg.com won't ship to the UK, they've got pretty low prices!).

Kenneth, my old drive is failing during verification (I use Toast), and has consistently failed on each of my last 10 attempts. _Something_ has to be seriously wrong! (I was in the middle of burning 15 discs, the first 5 worked, the next 10, not :-(. As for getting an 8x burner, it's only a matter of time before good 8x media hits the stores (why not future-proof myself?). My dead drive is an internal, and it was very convenient, but I have several machines and it'd be even more convenient to be able to move the burner around (normally, I'd have to use an external drive to move files from one machine to the one with the burner, a pain).

Fozz_uk, I have to confess that I don't use the hard drive in the d2 case at all. I was browsing in a local Apple store when I spotted a "manager's special": an Ultra320 SCSI drive (36Gb) for only £50 (normally, at that time, over £300). As I have an Ultra SCSI card in my development machine, and could use a larger scratch disc for Photoshop and FinalCut work, I bought it. When I got home, I cracked the case, pulled out the drive and installed it internally on my SCSI card. Works perfectly (too bad that d2 case isn't a firewire version, it'd certainly be convenient in my present DVD drive crisis!).

[Walker]

This may interest you (from the xlr8yourmac.com site)...

NEC ND-2500A (8x DVD-R/+R burner) reports on iDVD working with Lacie profile for Panther - Just as a FYI - despite the fact that Lacie (and the author of Patchburn II) don't say the burn support profiles enable iDVD support, I've had two NEC ND-2500A owners (as well as DVR-107D owners in the past) report iDVD worked after the added burn support profile. Remember iDVD requires a G4 CPU or better and does not support external drives however in any configuration. iDVD also does not burn to DVD+R media (to date). Use DVD-R media, although the old trick to mount a DVD-RW disc in the finder before running iDVD has been reported to work also.
Another tip is to set Energy Saver to not allow drive sleep as some drives are prone to going to sleep if a disc is left in the drive for long idle periods like the encoding phase of iDVD. I prefer to let iDVD fully encode the movies before pressing burn/inserting a disc to burn.
(The Lacie burn support profile for Panther is linked in the FAQ's DVD section as well as Reader reports on Patchburn II for Panther.)

[chasg]

Hey Walker, thanks for the info.

I've only ever burned one custom DVD, so I'm lucky that I really don't need iDVD at all. 99.9% of my DVD use is just for archiving and backup (I make most of my living as a graphic/interactive designer and photographer, and projects take a lot of space :-)

Cheers, and thanks again (just in case I ever need to use iDVD, I'll know I'll be able to!)

Chas