08-24-2009, 03:53 PM

i am not sure if this has been posted or not but it is super sweeeet.

i have always wished there was an option to get rid of the disc drive in our Macbooks and use the space for more logical things since i rarely need to "burn" anything anymore or install anything via disc besides the occasional OS and i can use an external for those rare needs.

this guy replaced the drive with an SSD to load the OS on which greatly improves performance and then a second larger HDD for storage.

i will most likely be doing this myself very soon.

check it out here.

08-24-2009, 04:06 PM

Originally Posted by fletch33

i have always wished there was an option to get rid of the disc drive in our Macbooks and use the space for more logical things since i rarely need to "burn" anything anymore or install anything via disc besides the occasional OS and i can use an external for those rare needs.

There was a time in Macintosh history when your wish was granted!

With the Powerbook 1400...it had a modular disk drive bay, where you could swap in a CD-rom drive, or a floppy drive, or a 2nd hard drive.

I still have a Powerbook 1400...but I never got the hard drive module.

The downside of today's integrated "slot-loading superdrive" in MacBook's & MacBook Pro's...it's pretty tough to do this.

- Nick

08-24-2009, 04:10 PM

Originally Posted by fletch33

i have always wished there was an option to get rid of the disc drive in our Macbooks and use the space for more logical things since i rarely need to "burn" anything anymore or install anything via disc besides the occasional OS and i can use an external for those rare needs.

So I take it you don't buy CDs or just not that often?
I'm still old-school and very much prefer buying an actual CD as opposed to purchasing just the music files from iTunes. So, I use my disc drive more than some people do.
I do think it would be a good option when buying your machine in case a person just doesn't want/need it.

08-24-2009, 04:32 PM

i have not purchased a CD od DVD for myself (gifts only) in years and i realized the other day that my car of 4 years has never had a cd in the cd player.

i do keep a stack of blank DVD's and Dual layers as well as CD's for times when i need to give data to someone to take with them or for any iMovie projects i may create and share or something but that is it.

you can get a sleek ultra-potable dual layer USB powered and even thow in light scribe for less than $50 these days if you wanted it. i have several home macs that can burn if i need it and i also have an older larger external that can be used for occasional must have a cd/dvd drive times.

here is what you could get if you felt you needed it. i have used my bro's and it works great and allows you to use just the USB ports for power or plug it in.

08-24-2009, 05:03 PM

I would do this too, if I had a Macbook. I'm planning on removing the DVD drive in my Mac Mini (I use it as a media center, so HDD is more important). Optical media is rapidly dying with the growth of such cheap and large HDDs.

08-24-2009, 05:25 PM

Originally Posted by Stretch

I would do this too, if I had a Macbook. I'm planning on removing the DVD drive in my Mac Mini (I use it as a media center, so HDD is more important). Optical media is rapidly dying with the growth of such cheap and large HDDs.

since the Mini is a stationary computer wouldn't it be easier to just add an external? i use a couple of Mini's on my LCD's at my house and pull all media from a single external and have almost nothing on the actual Mini HDD's themselves.

08-24-2009, 08:20 PM

Yeah, but then I can't brag that I have a Mini with an internal RAID setup. I do want to get a loaded Drobo for the Mini though.

08-24-2009, 08:53 PM

^ haha nice that would be a brag.

08-24-2009, 09:21 PM

I saw the add for this set up online some while back. It looked pretty cool. With a SSD to boot from, that's even better. I'm wondering if the Apple Remote Disk feature would work on a non-MacBook Air set up with two internal disk drives. Cool stuff either way. Please post when you get your done.

08-25-2009, 02:56 AM

Optical media is rapidly dying with the growth of such cheap and large HDDs.

Not really. If you buy it, it's on a disk. If you want to share information, you use disk/pendrive.
I never send by email anything important. + email providers set upper limits on attachments.
And msn can be SLOW.

08-25-2009, 08:36 AM

Originally Posted by DragonLance

Not really. If you buy it, it's on a disk. If you want to share information, you use disk/pendrive.

it would not be a solution for everyone of course there are people that use there burners everyday im sure.

Originally Posted by DragonLance

I never send by email anything important. + email providers set upper limits on attachments.
And msn can be SLOW.

thats what FTP's are for.

08-25-2009, 09:54 AM

Aside from OS installs, my use of optical media has dropped off rapidly in the last 2-3 years. All of my music purchases are through iTunes and are played through iPods. Both of our cars have aftermarket iPod interfaces, so the CD player is rarely if ever used. In fact, I can't remember the last time I used the optical drive in my iMac. Probably just doing a clean install of the OS when I first bought it.

On my desktop this would be a kind of pointless upgrade, seeing as I have over 2 TB of external storage already, and the optical drive runs on an ATA interface anyway. However when I replace it with a MBP in the future it's good to know this can be done.