[sethwrks]

not to mention - Toast Titanium and/or iTunes!
I've G4/400 laptop running 9.2 and I'll be upgrading soon to 10.2
and I want to know what I can get now that i wont have to replace later. I prefer USB if I can help it.

[CIA]

For OSX: http://www.apple.com/macosx/upgrade/storage.html

OS9: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=61639

The OS9 list is for Firewire and USB support in iTunes, but if it works in iTunes it works in the finder under disc burner. Also, if it works in a firewire/USB case, the mechanism will work if placed internally in your mac. Look at the mechs to see what you should be looking to buy (check ebay). It's safe to say anything working under OS9 will work in X. Also, Toast supports a lot of drives that Apple's built in disc burner software does not. Finally, check out Xlr8yourmac for a ton of plug in files to make CD-RW's work in OSX and 9 that are currently not supported. This may change as I hear panther uses one big file for CD/DVD support, vs. the small, easy to edit files now used.

[tooki]

Toast will support essentially any drive out there. Just be sure to update Toast in order to have all the speeds up to 52x available.

The fastest CD-RW drives supported by iTunes and Disc Burner in OS 9 are generally 16-24x burners, so you'll be really hard-pressed to find any compatible drives new. But if you check out xlr8yourmac.com's drive database, you'll see that lots of people have hacked Apple's drive support files in order to make them support unsupported drives!

tooki

[DNA man]

Originally posted by sethwrks:
not to mention - Toast Titanium and/or iTunes!
I've G4/400 laptop running 9.2 and I'll be upgrading soon to 10.2
and I want to know what I can get now that i wont have to replace later. I prefer USB if I can help it.

I use the external FW Lacie d2 CD-RW drive (the lastest x52x24x52 model). It works well (no problems to date) with OS9.2.2 and OSX10.2.6 on my Pismo.

The CDRW is supported by iTunes (both iTunes for OS9 and OSX) and LaCie gives you Toast Lite which works very well as an alternative.

Toast Lite also lets you burn ISO Mac/ PC hybrid CDs which OSX 10.2.6 does not.

As for speed the LaCie drive can reach max speed with the 'right' media. Plus in the UK, the CD-RW drives comes with a two year warranty.

I would recommend it to you.
Good luck with you shopping.

[bbales]

I have a laCie (firewire and USB) CDRW that I bought when I was still using 9 (now on X) and it works great. I think its maximum speed is 16X.

And I use Toast Titanium, too -- which also works in both versions.

[sethwrks]

Thanks one and all for your suggestions-
after all thats been said, I purchased the lacie d2 52X, and after it gets here, we'll see how it goes.

thanks again for your help!