How To Burn At 1X Speed

I've encountered the same problem with both my iMac and the MBP and spoke with Apple about it some time ago; however, there was no clear answer as to why any selected slower option would be negated (he agreed that slower speeds are better, but could not offer a solution except to possibly replace the drive and suggested I wait until Apple uses a different brand as stock). My external burner, which I've had for years, does not exhibit this behavior and burns at whatever speed I set it to, so I usually just use it. I also use Toast (8) because I've found that Disk Utility doesn't even offer 2x most of the time (which is what I usually use). I'm wondering if, in their quest to produce ever faster burning drives, they've simply eliminated the slow speed burning option?

Here is a link to the models available from LaCie (I have a previous version):

http://www.lacie.com/us/products/range.htm?id=10014

At this time, there is no Blu-Ray listed.

I've checked your link and can't find any mention of Mac compatibility on the model BE08; however, I did find another model that specifically mentions Mac:

http://www.lge.com/products/model/detail/ge20.jhtml

I have no experience with LGE or blu-ray drives.

As for replacing the internal - if you are under warranty, you'll need to have it done at an authorized service provider (I have no idea as to the cost, but I'd guess $$$); if you purchase an external, you can use it with other computers and it should outlast your current Mac (mine has served me well with 3 iMacs, a Mini, and currently the iMac and MBP).

I have not only the external burner, but 2 external LaCie hard drives as well; I've not had a problem with any of them and they generally "play" well with Macs. If I find a brand that works well with Macs and doesn't exhibit a lot of problems, I generally tend to stick with it, so I've had LaCie products ever since I bought the first external hard drive. Most Apple accessories stores carry the brand. LaCie is located in a suburb of Portland, OR - here is a link to an interesting article/background info on the company:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaCie

Again, I'm not very knowledgeable about blu-ray; as far as I know, blu-ray is not supported on the Mac as of now, so if you burn a blu-ray disk and play it in your external, I don't know about being able to see an increase in quality on your Mac?

Thanks for the stars and good luck - of course, no one knows anything about what Snow Leopard may or may not include (and speculations aren't allowed here)...

I just checked my burner and the burn options for a CD start at 1x, for a DVD they start at 2x. I usually use 2x for both.

I also checked the specs on that blu-ray burner you linked to; it is not only very recent technology (blu-ray), but my burner is at least 6 years old, so I really don't know because you can't compare the two. Their specs state BD-R 4x to 8x - I have no idea if that means that 4x is the slowest speed in blu-ray. Why don't you use the contact us link on LaCie's site to ask them a pre-sales question (make sure you include your Mac's specs, OS version, etc):

sales.ca@lacie.com

I'm intrested in being able to burn at real time as well. It should be possible to use the 1x speed but the slowest I can get is 6x/7x which is unacceptable to me. There's no way to predict which external burners will allow burning at 1x so I'm not keen on taking that gamble. Besides, if you ask for this in a computer store they don't even know what you're talking about, as if you've been cryogenically frozen for the last ten years. I'm using MFSL ultradisc 24k Gold CDs and usually burn them on my mac mini intel/Leopard (my MBP isn't resonance free enough and won't go slower either). Tests show I do get C1 and C2 errors at high speeds and I have burned CDs that won't play on my CEC TL51x. I use Toast 8 to burn. Any suggestions? Will the drive Apple sells for the MBA burn at 1x?