[jmacs_imac]

Currently have a imac 400 indigo dv 2000 summer with firewire and 10.2.4 operating system and would like to buy an external cd burner but do not know what burner is compatible with the jaguar system....any comments would be greatly appreciated...as u can see I am a newbie and hope I am in the right forum...thank u all..

[CreepDogg]

There are many different FireWire burners that work well with an iMac 400 and 10.2. I assume your model has FireWire - I think all the iMac 400s did (some 350s did not).

I have a LaCie 24x burner that I bought about a year and a half ago - it works really well. Today, you can get even faster ones - up to 52x I believe - and they're relatively inexpensive.

LaCie makes a good product - I also have an external hard drive from them - I got that more recently and it came in their new case design - it's all metal and seems quite solid - so I would recommend them. Good luck.

[Dex13]

Well i tried the apple store and found the
Lacie FireWire Burner for $179.
I would also try www.qps-inc.com
They also have a firewire cd-rw out and for OS X

[dws]

There are two types of external CD burners available: USB & Firewire. While the USB drives are cheaper, the much faster Firewire drives eliminate the problem of buffer overruns.

What's a buffer overrun? The computer sends stuff to the burner in chunks. If the speed of the connection is not fast enough, the burner will be left high & dry; resulting in possible errors in the burn.

The small extra expense of getting a Firewire drive is worth it.

Speaking of buffers... Get a burner with the largest buffer you can afford.

People will often recommend that you get a burner that reads and write at bleeding-edge speeds. For most people, the extra expense of getting one of the latest drives truly isn't worth it. Getting a nice, cheap, middle-of-the-road device will make you happy.

Here's a link to Apple's page of burners that are completely compatible with iTunes (it's a shorter list than all burners compatible with OS X, but will give you the best overall experience):
http://www.apple.com/itunes/compatibility/

[jmacs_imac]

I want to thank everyone for input on the external drive question...not only do I enjoy my Imac (which does come with 2 usb 1.1 and 2 firewire ports)..I really enjoy the Mac community and support...I did look at the Lacie and reviews from the Mac community say they are flawless...the $180 price tag is scary...I did hear that Yamaha is getting out of the cd drive business and they have one around $90 - $100 range...I'll be lookin' around...thanx to all for the inputs...U macheads are GREAT...