Trying to figure why DVDs are so slow on OSX.

Joined
Dec 8, 2009
Messages
453
Reaction score
10
Points
18
Location
The same as Sheldon Cooper - East Texas
Your Mac's Specs
iMac 2014 i5 5k 32gb 1tb fusion, second TB display, 2014 MBA
I have been experimenting to see why an external USB DVD drive is so slow, but all I have come up with is that the problem has to be OSX. Note the keyword "external." I know all about Riplock for internal drives, but this (these) are ordinary drives off the shelves of the computer store. Besides, the Sony's have been around for about eight years and that precedes Riplock as near as I can tell.

I have tried a Sony, an HP and a Noname, and all will take about an hour dumping the data from the platter to the hard drive, on a 4 core Mac Mini. The same drives, connected to a PC with Linux will pull it off in fifteen minutes or less. Hooked to the Mac, the drives are very quiet, and on the PC they really wind up to a whine. Moved internally to the SATA buss on the PC, they are even faster, copying the whole disk in just minutes.

It fits the description of Riplock to a T, but as I understand it, that feature is on the drive itself, not the Mac, unless it is on all drives and is triggered by the OS. That would make sense that Debian would not tell a drive to degrade its performance, although it still wouldn't explain why the older drives still run slow.

Anybody?

***Later. Apparently Riplock is older than I thought, since I found posts talking about it going back to 2002. But, I found a couple of LG MODISKS DVD drives that work fine. They are noisy, as they wind up to max RPM but data will now come off at full USB speed. So the problem must have really have been RL, but I still don't know why Debian can override it.
 
Last edited:
OP
cptkrf
Joined
Dec 8, 2009
Messages
453
Reaction score
10
Points
18
Location
The same as Sheldon Cooper - East Texas
Your Mac's Specs
iMac 2014 i5 5k 32gb 1tb fusion, second TB display, 2014 MBA
Now I am back to confused again. I tried the old Sony DVD on an ooooold Mini. One of the old square plastic jobs and with Lion, no less. The DVD winds up like a turboprop taking off and unloads the data in a fourth of the time that my far newer 4-core Mavericks Mini can do.

So, I am back to saying that the problem is not the drive, but Newer OSX's.

I think.
 

Shop Amazon


Shop for your Apple, Mac, iPhone and other computer products on Amazon.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.
Top