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Best USB CD/DVD 'Superdrive' drive for new iMac

I've been reading several posts about external (USB?) optical DVD +/- burner/reader drives for the latest desktop iMacs, and several comments have been about various third party ones being superior to the external Apple one that's also available (i.e. that Apple drives often give trouble and are less reliable).


Having seen the likes of LaCie, Western Digital and Seagate mentioned, I'd appreciate comments/recommendations before I go ahead and buy a new iMac - along with an external Apple? or third party? drive.

iMac (20-inch Early 2008), Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Feb 2, 2013 6:40 AM

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7 replies

Feb 6, 2013 7:32 PM in response to makey

The new iMacs use USB 3.0 speeds, now.

I would look for an optical drive that uses the new USB 3 connections.

This will be a very fast drive.

If you can't find an optical drive with USB 3.0, then look for a drive that uses FireWire 400/800 and use an Apple FireWire to Thunderbolt adapter to connect the drive.

FireWire 800 optical drives are pretty fast at up to 85Mbps transfer speeds.


Here is one such drive.


http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MRF82SD24S/

And the Apple adapter.


http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD464ZM/A/apple-thunderbolt-to-firewire-adapte r?fnode=51


Good Luck!

Best USB CD/DVD 'Superdrive' drive for new iMac

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