superdrive on m1 mac mini

My super drive came out of a white MacBook. I put it in an OWC enclosure and have been using it since. I am now using it on my M1mac mini. It is plugged in to an apple USB A to USB C adapter and into one of the mini’s USB C ports. Works fine. I think it may be the Apple enclosure.

Funnily enough the Superdrive started working when hooked up directly to the USB-A port on the new M1 Macmini but now it won't, even when connected to the USB-C port via adapter. The Superdrive works fine on my wife's older Macbook Pro so it's not a Superdrive problem and since I just bought the adapter I don't think it's an adapter problem. Gary_G_K and others seem to be having some success with OWC enclosures but how many more $50 peripherals does one have to buy to use Apple gear from prior generations?

Yeah, the superdrives do work directly plugged into the M1 MacMini, either the USB-A port or the USB-C port. I have two superdrives in the family. My wife's worked fine, mine conked out and threw me for a loop when it didn't work but I finally realized it wasn't going to work anywhere else anyway. A little disappointing to find out that repairing a superdrive in a mac store costs as much as buying a new one. Also disappointing to find out that some third party disk drives do not work even when plugged directly into a MacMini. Saw enough posts from others to learn that using an external hub for a third party disk drive is probably a lost cause. I am using a hub for a Face Time camera, downloading photos from another camera and an iPhone connection cable, but that's about it. Printer is plugged directly into the MacMini as is my keyboard.

I have the new Mac mini with an old super drive in a non apple enclosure and it works fine with a usb A to C adapter. The super drive came from an old Mac book pro (when they had a super drive).

Strange. I also have a Samsung CD/DVD drive and it works fine as well with an adapter USB-A to USB-C.

So my Superdrive does not work with the new M1Macmini whether it's plugged directly into one of the USB-A ports or the USB-C with an adapter. Others on this forum say it will not work with a powered hub either so what's Apple going to do about it? Develop a new Superdrive that is not USB powered or simply tell me I'm SOL?

So this is the answer I get to my old thread on new MacMini not reading thre old. My new M1 MacMini with OS Big Sur will not read a 30GB flash drive I used to store some data from my late 2012 McMini with OS Catalina. No big deal since I made a complete Time Machine backup of the old MacMini before transferring to the new one, but does this mean the new M1 chip can't read flash drives formatted with older OS? I tried two different USB ports but the drive just doesn't show up on the desktop of Disk Utility. Support says if your new MacMini doesn't read the old flash drive buy a new one or send back the MacMini for a refund. Case ID: 101328827574 if anyone wants to follow up on it. Thanks again, Apple, FOR NOTHING! 

I have a M1 Mac Mini with 16GB 1TB SSD that reads my Mac OS 9 formatted 2GB flash drive without issue. I used it to update my Safari BookMarks (from a 2009 iMac 27") in Big Sur's Safari. Worked fine. Even though those were OS X High Sierra files! HTML files must be pretty portable.

All my other smaller flash drives do indeed work with my M1 MacMini. The problem appears to be specific to just the green, waterproof 32GB Patriot S-Mini flash drive, which I believe is the oldest USB 1.0. There have been some posts in this forum that the M1 does not produce enough amp power to use some bus-powered devices, especially if they are plugged into a USB-A hub as opposed to being plugged into the computer itself.

Yes, unplugged everything, even the keyboard, and the Superdrive just doesn't work. My new MacMini has the maximum everything, Ram, SSD, 1TB. A Superdrive is not a big money item nor used that much but it can be useful when needed and it's really disappointing to have Apple tell you you're just SOL.

Can anyone recommend a good third party external read and write CD/DVR drive with USB-C connector that will work with the new M1 MacMini. I tried the $30 Nolyth, it made a lot of noise, accepted and ejected disks but they did not show up on the desktop so it's going back to Amazon.

I do not know about the new mini but I can use my superdrive attached to a USB-C port on my 16" MBP using Apple's adapter, with no problem.

If tried a selection of old USB flash drives between 256M and 16G and not had any issues on my M1 Mac mini. All were USB 2.0 if that makes any difference.

Optical drives need more power than a normal computer USB port will provide. A non-Apple optical drive will have its own power supply, or a second USB cable for extra power. Older Apple computers that supported the external Superdrive had special circuitry that could boost the power output of a USB port when a Superdrive was connected. Even the Apple wired keyboard with two USB ports was designed to send this extra power to one of its USB ports when a Superdrive was connected. USB ports on hubs and display, and apparently the M1 Mac mini, don't have this extra power capability, so can't run a Superdrive.