Does anyone have any suggestions and where I can get one for a decent price? Do they make firewire external cd/dvd drives. I know usb is a lot slower so I was thinking that the firewire ones would be a lot quicker for burning cds and also extracting information.
Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.7.2)
My suggestion would be OWC:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/optical-drives/
In my experience, you probably won't see a tremendous increase in performance except for ripping DVDs. Random access of CD's & DVDs has some technical issues that cause low thoughput. In a "continuous" data stream like a DVD rip, then there would be benefit from the faster throughput of Firewire. But random access doesn't see as dramatic an improvement.
And writing DVDs, often you end up burning at a slower speed because of the quality of the blank disks or drive mechanism. (IOW, burning DVDs at 8x causes more "coasters" than burning at 2x.) So again, offsetting the speed advantages of Firewire.
So IMHO, don't expect "greatness" from a Firewire optical drive. I'm not saying don't get one, as I still think you'll see an improvement over a USB drive. Just don't be surprised if you do NOT see an improvement.
Optical discs are far slower than hard disks for both reading and writing, so much so that the speed difference between FireWire and USB2 is irrelevant. These days most drives are now USB only but you might find a FireWire if you look. I found the following Lacie DVD drive http://www.lacie.com/us/products/range.htm?id=10014 which can of course also handle CD discs.
Other than that, you could consider getting a used drive off eBay.
Build you own!!!!
You can go to a off beat apple store and purchase a external box for your own cd drive that will support fireiwre and even esata there around 80.00 and the drive should only run you 50.00 to 150.00 depending on what you want to do with the drive
Unless you have some odd reason for NEEDING firewire, it's pointless for CDs. CDs are very slow relative to hard drives. Save money and use a USB drive.
I'm trying to find a firewire external cd drive.
