Use the internal DVD drive as an external drive to reduce MacBook's weight?

derekww wrote:
I really want a light MacBook Pro.

Consider the MacBook Air.

The optical drive weights only a few ounces. At only 3.0 lbs, the MBA is 1.5 lbs lighter than the 13" MBP.

We've replaced some of the optical drives in macbook pros with SSD drives. We've got a couple of external drives to use as needed, though more often than not we just use USB memory drives with disk images.

You can boot from the external drive. I couldn't find any external cases for the Mac optical drives but they're probably available. You won't save a lot of weight by removing the optical drive.

The optical drive will work in an external enclosure (provided you can find one to fit it). You will be able to boot, etc... just as you can with the drive internally. As has been mentioned, the weight of the optical drive is nearly nothing when you consider the entire weight of the unit. Also, while the optical drive does require a minimum of force to get the slot loading mechanism to activate, it may be enough to slide a light external enclosure... so you would want to be sure any external enclosure has enough weight or decent anti-slip feet to keep it in place.

I don't really see any advantage to doing this however. Also, with such an operation, there is always the potential for damaging your MacBook voiding your warranty.

MCE has an enclosure for your drive, but it doesn't appear to be sold separately (it's bundled with their OptiBay drive modules). I don't know of any other source for one, so call MCE and ask whether they'll sell just the enclosure to you.

http://www.powerbook1.com/contact.html