USB 2.0 External CD/DVD Drive?

[FBz]

Prompted again now (by Captain Corndog’s recent posts)
I do wonder about a suitable USB 2.0 External CD/DVD drive.
Seems that there are numerous brands and sources available
for these things and some of them priced at or near $20.00!!!

Given my own recent escapades with: G3 iBooks, the nefarious
Lombard PowerBook and the most-heinous of all > the B&W G3…
an inexpensive external USB drive of this sort might just be
a near necessity, if not a complete MUST HAVE?

SO, who has one that they’ve used and possibly still use?
Would you recommend your specific drive and at what cost?
AND as this is generally not a daily need… keeping them on
the inexpensive side would be absolutely great.

Anybody?



*I’ve plenty of loose, internal Apple SuperDrives that might
work nicely in the OWC SuperSlim enclosure from B&H Photo.
Then again, the $8.73 model from eBay (+$12.26 shipping)
doesn’t look all that bad either.

[IIO]

dont forget that USB limits the speed of DVD burning to around x8 and even CD burning and reading hits the limit.

so from that point of view firewire is always superior and eventually worth the price difference.

i bought 2 brandnew burners recently for around USD 7,50 but i have not yet decided if i put them in minis or into an enclosure for sharing between machines.

[FBz]

Thanks IIO. Good firewire point.

My thinking was restricted to USB by some earlier Macs (especially the Lombard) not having firewire. I do have a few SCSI CD/DVD drives and several suitable external FW HDs. (Again, perhaps mentally handicapped by the Lombard!) Might be best to erase such consideration from my mind?

And primary use here was not so much for writing to disk(s) but more towards OS installs on earlier machines from CD/DVD… like Captain Corndog’s G3 iBook with a non-functional CD/DVD drive.

I’ve a tendency to travel “backwards” with earlier Mac resurrections.

And although USB or FW won’t help me here with an upcoming project
(I recently saw an Apple Lisa in my attic - that I might now investigate)
… a USB CD/DVD external might help with others.

[IIO]

another question is if these enclosures have power connectors and what kind of PSU they need (or if they are included?)

these slim drives would make me want to build a box with 10 of them, for old sampling CDs or application installers.

or for DVD-ROM media...

[robespierre]

The Pioneer slim drives can read and write CDs using the power from a single USB 2.0 port. To burn DVDs they require power from two USB ports and have a power splitter cable for this. They can also take power from a +5V, 1.0A power supply via the optional barrel jack (dimensions unknown), in case the computer can't supply enough power over USB.

These no-name drives may have the same features but you'd have to check.