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Surff · Mar 14, 2009, 01:01 PM

Anyone know what Apple has done to the dvd drive interconnect?
eSATA, ATAPI or something else.

P · Mar 14, 2009, 01:27 PM

Depends on the exact machine. They've quite recently moved from IDE (=ATA, ATAPI, PATA or whatever you want to call it) to SATA for optical drives. eSATA is not used (it's a version of SATA for external connections).

Surff · Mar 14, 2009, 01:38 PM

It's one of those days...

I was asking about the new MacPros. I'm considering purchasing one and I need SATA in the optical bays.

mduell · Mar 14, 2009, 05:09 PM

Even though the previous generation Mac Pros uses ATA(PI) for the optical drives, they had two extra SATA headers available on the logic board. I haven't seen a detailed system diagram of the new one yet, but I'd assume they're either now using SATA for the optical drives or still have the extra SATA headers available.

P · Mar 15, 2009, 08:46 AM

The new MPs indeed use SATA opticals. A few of the disassembly reports have made that quite clear.

In fact, if you put in 4 HDs and 2 opticals, you have no SATA ports left. The 4 HDs have their own special connectors directly on the motherboard, and there are only two more SATA ports - intended for the opticals.