External rom drives

[lori5060]

I own a MacBook Air. 13" early 2015. Processor 1.6GHz Intel core i5. 8gb memory 1600 MHz ddr3. I have 120gb had drive but keep a lot of file in an external drive so internal does not get filled up. Right now I have only 45gb free! Am Running Yosemite 10.10.5


i am looking into purchasing a rom drive. Not necessarily the apple SuperDrive which is expensive for the amount i will use it.

1. I wuld like one that will allow read/write CDs and DVDs. At this point don't need blue ray!
2. Most I have looked at are usb power driven from laptop. So not sure if power will be drained from laptop while in use, tho probably will have MacBook plugged to,power while in use.
3. Have read pros and cons of tray vs slot and not sure which way to go with that.

Tho I am finding that I get the swirling ball which I understand indicates more time/space needed for program to load. Am bit frustrated with this at times and my look into a MacBook Pro in future.

Will any extternal rom drive I purchase now work with a new MacBook Pro?

Hope someone can give me some ideas. Thnks

 

[Slydude]

I have this drive and like it a lot though I don't burn as many discs as I used to in the old days. I got the Blu-ray version so that I could archive my iTunes library on optical discs and it would take fewer Blu-ray discs than DVD.

This drive can be powered off of the USB ports but I purchased the optional AC adapter for about $10.00 extra. The drive uses two USB ports when running without the AC adapter. I don't remember for sure if it can run on one port and the AC adapter. I think so but if that is important to you contact them to find out.

Personally I prefer the tray loading DVD drives over slot loading. Tray loaders seem to be more durable and are sometimes cheaper. If you are going to use paper disc labels on the DVDs, I would definitely choose the tray loaders. The extra thickness of the labeling paper sometimes gets stuck in slot loaders.

 

[chscag]

Will any extternal rom drive I purchase now work with a new MacBook Pro?

Yes, they should. The one mentioned above by Slydude is a very good drive albeit a bit more expensive than it should be. You're up in Canada so I'm not familiar with your prices but Best Buy, Staples, and many other stores sell external drives for less than $40.00. I own both a Samsung and LG drive which were inexpensive and work very well. As Slydude mentioned, most of the external USB drives are going to need a double connector or AC adapter. So keep that in mind when you purchase one.

 

[lori5060]

Thanks to you both about my post. Most interesting is that external drives require 2 usb ports to run. So will look into an adapter.

 

[lori5060]

I am not techy at all. Googled and found a zillion adapters out there.
What input (volt) and output (w) wuld I need?
Do I need to be concerned with compatibility with rom drive I buy?
What about cord length?

OR mayb better and/or cheaper to get rom drive with adapter included.

Can anyone give me some idea of how to decide which adapter to get!

 

[chscag]

Most external optical drives need 5 Volts and around 1000 MA to function well. Since you're not "techy", it's probably best for you to buy an external optical drive with an included adapter. That will cost more but convenient and less of a bother. Don't worry about cord length since with an AC adapter you can always use an extension cord if need be. And as already noted, just about any USB external optical drive should work with your Mac. Make sure you shop somewhere that allows returns if for some reason things don't work out.

 

[MacInWin]

I have a drive with a dual-headed cable. It only needs two ports for when I am writing to a disk, not when it's reading. The reason for having two usb ends on the cable is that a USB port by definition only provides about 500ma of power and as chscag said, optical drives (when writing) need about twice that. So unless your Mac has two ports, you need a drive with an external power supply. If you try an adapter to get more USB ports out of your Air, you will still be limited to the ONE port on the Air providing only 500ma. You could get a powered USB hub and use that with the external optical drive, but that's another bit of kit to carry about and you still need external power to write. You are better off getting an external Optical with a power cable that plugs into the wall. That way you only use one USB port and the power comes from the external power supply for the drive, saving your battery in the Air.