Best after market Superdrive and External Hard drive?

I built my own. Not only do my specs outperform whats out there but I ended up paying nearly half the money.

My DVD is running custom firmware now, Region Free and I detect the media ID on each disc and burn beyond their max speed ratings safely. Full dual layer support as well. I also rewrite the DVD ID on the fly so old DVD players read it in the best compatibility mode.

If this is what you want and you don't mind learning technical information then go here:
http://forum.rpc1.org

If you just want something off the shelf then you should read the latest reviews in the magazines, if you have a library nearby visit their A/V section or whatever they call the section they store magazine subscriptions in.

You can also check out macworld and do google searches to help you research.

Good luck!

Sam,

Other World Computing's line of Firewire drives consistently gets very good reviews and is very reasonable.

http://www.macsales.com/

Lacie has been making Mac peripherals for decades though not too long ago some people were having some problems.

http://www.lacie.com/

People swear by Wiebe drives, but they seem awfully expensive to me.
http://www.wiebetech.com/home.php

The build your own route does work well. Just make sure you get a case with Oxford chipset.

Good Luck,

Rob

Building your own? Sounds pretty cool to me. I might look into that.

EDIT: When you say "build your own" do you mean you buy enclosures and internal drives and put them together, then use custom firmware.

"Building your own? Sounds pretty cool to me. I might look into that.

EDIT: When you say "build your own" do you mean you buy enclosures and internal drives and put them together, then use custom firmware."

Yes!

I am always with the highest quality components, and the first in line with all the latest firmware bug fixes before having to wait for a 3rd party umm Retailer to repackage a fix for their combination of off-the-shelf enclosure and drive.

The 200 Gig FireWire HD only cost me $40 for a 3.5" fan-less FireWire/USB2 case. (I shopped around to get an external brick power supply that had the ability to work on 110/240volt 50/60Hz for use in multiple countries). I already had the hard drive, which I got for $70 after coupons from a PC site.

The DVD Dual Layer burner cost me $47 for the Nec 3250A and another $40 for a 5.25" External FireWire/USB2 enclosure. Then I modified the firmware of the NEC with 3rd party firmware to get rid of Region lockouts and speed up the successful burn speed of certain 8x media to 16x speeds. =)

So there you go, I think just one external hard drive from a computer store by a Retailer would cost the same as both or a little more!

And as you can see, my setup is giving me no problems or headaches while users of the Retailer models are posting lots of grief to the forums and still no patches from their Retailer. I think you need to pick and choose your fights and go with the best in each situation. For example, with the money I saved I bought the official Apple Wireless Pro Keyboard and Mouse =)

hilsen,
Jan

There's essentially no risk when making an external Firewire hard drive using a case with the Oxford chipset, and any modern, major brand 7200 rpm drive (WD, maxtor, seagate, hitachi). Plug it in, it just works.

A burner is a little bit more involved, because programs can be a bit picky about burners.