[zoluu99]

I have a late 2009 Mac Mini with 10.6.8 and seem to need a new external optical drive. I was having a little trouble with the original excepting CDs and took it to some Apple certified techs. They tell me Apple is denying my warranty because of smoking. I quit smoking last year but too late for my computer I guess. They want over $300 to put a new drive in but that seems silly. They told me I could get an external drive and that Apple makes one, the Macbook Air drive, but I think it may only work on Macbooks and the newest Mac Minis. I was also told I could just go to Walmart and they would have an external drive that should work just fine. Is this true? I really don't use the optical drive that much and could probably live without it. But I would like the option of occasionally being able to rip and burn CDs. I don't care about burning DVDS. I guess it would need to be some sort of DVD drive though. Can anyone recommend something that would work with my system?

Thanks

[subego]

This is probably overkill, but it's cheaper and more feature laden than the Apple model.

Amazon.com: LaCie 301484U 22X d2 DVDRW DL Lightscribe USB2.0 and FireWire US: Electronics

It looks like there are models listed on that page from other companies which are even cheaper. I do however know the LaCie works well with old Macs. A friend of mine has one and it worked with his G4 gooseneck iMac.

[Waragainstsleep]

There is an easy mod you can do in software to make the Apple drive work on other Macs.

[Chongo]

I saw this Bluray at Fry's
FRYS.com�|�LG

[CharlesS]

I have this Blu-Ray, and it works quite well:

Newegg.com - LITE-ON USB 3.0 12X External Blu-ray Disc Writer Model eHBU212-08 LightScribe Support

However, since the OP doesn't even care about burning DVDs, I suspect he/she definitely wouldn't be concerned with burning Blu-Ray. Plain old DVD-RW drives can be found in the $30-$50 range. This one is probably very similar to mine, but without the Blu-Ray support:

Newegg.com - LITE-ON USB 2.0 External 24X DVD Writer Model eHAU424-08 LightScribe Support

Neither of these is portable, of course.

[Nergol]

I used to have an external FireWire DVD-R drive. I've heard that FireWire is overkill for external optical drives - that at the speed they operate, even USB 2.0 is more than fast enough.

Is that true?

[abby]

you can buy an external drive for the cd that will suit your system. there are tons of it at amazon and ebay.
also the suggestions above seems nice. i took a look of it and looks promising to me.