New DVD Burner

I really don't care about speed. Even if it takes 2 h. to burn a movie that's fine; I click "burn" and go watch TV. I prefer, just to be on the safe side, not to do any other activities on the computer (surfing the web, listening to iTunes, etc) when I burn a DVD.

I read the article you linked (CD tips) and it is not the media; I only use brand name, there's no label or ink when I insert the blank DVD, I checked to see if there's scratches or dust before I put it on the tray, etc.

My question was more about what is the difference between these two, beside that one is inside my computer and the other is external: they are both optical drive, the external is USB 3.0 while the one in the computer is connected to the host/motherboard via a SATA interface.

There's a saying in French: "c'est chapeau blanc et blanc chapeau" (="it's white hat and hat white", referring to something that is the same or as you say in english "same difference").

If I'm buying this external burner, am I buying the same thing that is already in my computer and the only difference is that it will be outside (and slower)? And one is USB while the other is SATA?

Why does my optical drive behave this way? Are they known issue about this method of burning a DVD?

Why do people buy a software like Toast Titanium to burn DVD instead of using this method?

I used Toast Titanium 7.1.3 with Snow Leopard and before that, Tiger and before that with whatever version I had (forgot the name) without any problems.

When I inserted a blank DVD, Toast Titanium will open automatically and I burned data on a CD or movies on a DVD. I might be wrong but I think that the rate of success was 98%.

The problem with Toast Titanium is that it will not work if I upgrade to another version of OS X

With the internal optical drive it will always work with whatever I have. But it is unreliable.

The ad for the OWC Mercury Pro says: "Now with an updated design, Mercury Pro is the premier drive to bring optical media back to your workflow." Huh? Aren't all drives optical? BTW I own many products from OWC; it is a very good brand.

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MR3USD24/

So the basic question is: will this external OWC Mercury Pro be different, better, and RELIABLE (very important !!!) than the one I have in the computer?

I didn't know that Toast Titanium v11.2 works with Mountain Lion OS 10.8.5 (which is what I have).

I remember visiting the Toast-Roxio website back in June or so and only the version 10 was good; all the other versions after that had full of angry reviews against it (Version 11,12,13 etc.)

As I said Version 10 sounded good but is not supported for Mountain Lion. Neither is version 11

You sell version 7 but I already have Toast Titanium 7.1.3 and was very happy with it till I upgraded to Mountain Lion. Before that, as I said to Brady, the rate of success was 98%.

I also mentioned that many critics said that Toast was a good products some years ago but not anymore.

First of all you cannot buy an older version from Roxio; they sell only version 14

So if I want version 11,2 I need to go to Amazon which I visited today

http://www.amazon.com/Toast-Titanium-Mac-Old-Version/dp/B004QK8FBG/ref=cm_cr_pr_ product_top?ie=UTF8#customerReviews

And as you can see people are very unhappy. Almost half (45%) give it 1 or 2 stars (and many people give 1 star because there is no zero stars)

Only 37% gives 4 or 5 stars.

And those who are in the middle (3 stars ) gives comments like:

"Works OK with Tivo-to-Go, which is not as useful as it once was" ....."Sketchy" ..."Barely works, Unstable"

When I visit Amazon I immediately click on 1 star to see all the reviews, since 5 stars saying "good, I'm happy" is of no help and it may be fake reviews. Then I click on all the 2 stars, then all the 3 stars etc. This gives you a pretty good picture of a product.

So I'm very hesitant to buy a Toast Titanium/Roxio products.