Is it actually useful having 2 optical drives?

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Level 4

2,239 points

Is it actually useful having 2 optical drives?

When Apple launched the Mac Pro I assumed that the second optical drive slot was in preparation for blueray (which still isn't available...), but given how extremely cheap DVD+/-RW drives are now, I'm wondering whether it would actually be worthwhile to have a second DVD drive?

The biggest benefit I would hope for, which is using Backup to backup to multiple DVD's - burning 2 at a time, actually sounds like it's not possible.

Maybe having a game DVD in the drive for playing in the evening, without having to keep taking it out for doing other stuff, might be useful.

How useful have others found it to be? Does the limitation of an each application only being able to burn to one at a time actually make it less useful than it should be?

PowerMac G5 Dual 2.3Ghz / MacBook 2.0GHz duo, Mac OS X (10.5.1), 4.5GB RAM, GeForce 6800 Ultra / 2GB RAM

Posted on Jan 10, 2008 3:04 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Martin Pace

Level 5

5,115 points

Jan 10, 2008 7:12 PM in response to bilbo_baggins

I installed a Lightscribe drive in my second bay. I can burn a CD/DVD in the Apple Drive while burning the artwork in the Lightscribe drive at the same time. Not a monumental time saver but it is useful. If you really need to frequently burn multiple disks a disk replicator would be the way to go. If you are only occasionally burning multiple disks you can always launch multiple instances of a program to burn two disks at the same time. You can also listen to a CD while burning a disk, play a game while listening to a CD, read on files on a data disk while watching a DVD, burn a disk while watching a DVD...

It really depends on just hope you use your computer, a second optical bay just adds flexibility.

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Answer 2

Jan 10, 2008 5:30 PM in response to bilbo_baggins

As far as I know, you can't burn 2 discs at once, but there are other advantages.

I frequently copy image files from CDs to my hard drive, and since the finder can handle multiple copying operations, you can put 2 discs in the drives, and copy files from both to different locations on your hard drive at once.

It's also nice for a quick duplication of a CD/DVD without having to make a disc image or hook up an auxiliary drive.

What may be possible (but I haven't tried it) would be to burn two discs at once, using two different applications. For example, burning a CD in iTunes, and then burning another in Toast, which allows you to select which drive to burn to. Now I'm curious . . .I think I'll try it and let you know.

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Answer 3

Jan 18, 2008 5:15 PM in response to bilbo_baggins

I burn 2 DVDs in parallel all the time with Disk Utility. When I make a DVD-Video with DVD Studio Pro that I need multiple copies of, I create a disk image with DVD Studio Pro and use Disk Utility to burn the copies to both internal DVD burners simultaneously. This is on an old G4 which also has two optical drive bays.

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Answer 4

Jan 23, 2008 12:31 PM in response to bilbo_baggins

You can burn two disks simultaneuosly with Toast. Just duplicate the Toast app, name one Toast-1 and Toast-2 so you don't get confused. I do it all the time...saves a lot of time after a 25Gb wedding.

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Answer 5

Resno

Level 1

63 points

Jan 23, 2008 12:10 PM in response to bilbo_baggins

I have the regular superdrive on the first tray, my second one is Blu-Ray drive so I can watch Blu-Ray on Boot Camp.

You know, what actually useful is an external optical drive. This was a great help for me when I was installing XP Media Center which requires me to change the CD. And since there's no way you can access built-in superdrive's button, you need to have an external drive that you can open with a touch on the button.

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Answer 6

bilbo_baggins Author

Level 4

2,239 points

Jan 11, 2008 3:05 AM in response to Martin Pace

While my daily backups go to a second hard drive, I periodically make backups of my home folder to DVD, and it usually takes 15-20 DVD's which takes many hours. Burning 2 DVD's at a time would be a real time save for me. I don't generally need to duplicate discs.

Probably a re-writable blueray disc would be far more time saving for me.

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Answer 7

Jan 11, 2008 3:54 AM in response to bilbo_baggins

Most applications can burn more than one disc at a time. I think iTunes can't burn the same playlist to more than one drive at a time, though.

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Answer 8

Jan 18, 2008 4:10 PM in response to bilbo_baggins

My first drive is just used for importing
second gets hammered doing all burning

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Answer 9

Jan 23, 2008 7:08 AM in response to DCIFRTHS

Head on over to http://forums.xlr8yourmac.com/drivedb/search.drivedb.lasso and check for information on your particular drive in the database of user reports.

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Answer 10

bilbo_baggins Author

Level 4

2,239 points

Jan 11, 2008 6:18 AM in response to Malcolm Rayfield

That's useful to know. I'm not too worried about iTunes.

Can anyone confirm whether using Backup (Apple's backup software with .Mac) will burn 2 DVD's simultaneously when doing a backing up a large plan? That's really the main purpose I would benefit from using if I had a 2nd DVD writer.

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Answer 11

DCIFRTHS

Level 1

34 points

Jan 23, 2008 12:36 AM in response to Martin Pace

I am new to the Mac, and I was wondering if the new Mac Pro will accept any brand of SATA CD/DVD writer or if the drive has to have Apple compatible firmware to work?

I have a couple of internal Samsung LightScribe drives I'd like to use.

Thanks!

Message was edited by: DCIFRTHS

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Answer 12

Jan 24, 2008 3:25 AM in response to Mike Boreham

Slighty OT....is it still possible to use one of the optical drive bays as a 5th hard drive bay on the NEW Mac Pro? I want to use that as my system drive and then setup a 4 x SATA RAID-5 internally with the other 4 bays.

Is this possible? I appreciate I'd most likely have to get a RAID card aswell for it to be effective.

Thanks.

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