Why do you need more Optical drives?

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
I am curious how much people use multiple drives? Is it really necessary to have a 2nd or 3rd drive bay?



With the capacity and price of hard drives now isn't it a lot easier to just store everything on your hard drive?



I never use my second drive. Do any of you guys? And if so, what for?
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 82
    You forgot to mention that the ready availability of firewire & USB2 drives for those who do need 2 drives makes this 'criticism' of the new PowerMac as relevant as its lack of a floppy or ADB connector.
  • Reply 2 of 82
    Quote:

    Originally posted by stupider...likeafox

    You forgot to mention that the ready availability of firewire & USB2 drives for those who do need 2 drives makes this 'criticism' of the new PowerMac as relevant as its lack of a floppy or ADB connector.



    So thoughtful of Apple to provide a remarkably clean and purposeful case design, only to have me clutter up my desk with external drives and firewire cables.
  • Reply 3 of 82
    isegwayisegway Posts: 133member
    I'm not saying apple was right or wrong to include only one optical drive bay in the "enclosure".



    I don't know. For me it doesn't really matter. I don't burn a lot of disks.



    I am just curious how much people actually use them. I see a lot of people that wish there were more bays but they don't say what they use them for. Just curious.
  • Reply 4 of 82
    Quote:

    Originally posted by audiopollution

    So thoughtful of Apple to provide a remarkably clean and purposeful case design, only to have me clutter up my desk with external drives and firewire cables.



    And how is this different from the iMac or iBook users cluttering up their desks with floppy disk drives?



    They have (once again) weighed the benefits and realised that with a single drive that can burn and play CD/CDR/CDRW/DVD disks, the vast majority of people wouldn't need 2 drive bays.



    The *tiny* minority who do will have to live with the clutter and refrain from bitching about this 'mistake' even if they find themselves (this time) on the losing end of the trade-off.
  • Reply 5 of 82
    Quote:

    Originally posted by stupider...likeafox

    And how is this different from the iMac or iBook users cluttering up their desks with floppy disk drives?



    They have (once again) weighed the benefits and realised that with a single drive that can burn and play CD/CDR/CDRW/DVD disks, the vast majority of people wouldn't need 2 drive bays.



    The *tiny* minority who do will have to live with the clutter and refrain from bitching about this 'mistake' even if they find themselves (this time) on the losing end of the trade-off.




    Are you being serious?



    Your comparison with the iBook or iMac is ridiculous. Neither of those are 'pro' machines.



    Who uses floppy drives anyway?



    If I want to make a quick copy of a CD for a client, I will now have to create an image on the HD, and then burn the copy. I would prefer to have two drives and copy directly from one to the other. Making an image and then burning it would be okay when I only have one disc to copy, but if I have to copy 10-15 discs I'll be getting pissed off in a short amount of time.



    The short-sightedness of this new case design extends beyond the exclusion of a second optical drive bay. The major flaw is the fact that it only has two HD bays.



    I have four 200 gig drives in my current machine. When I move up to the G5, I will be forced to purchase 2 external drive cases in order to use my current drives.



    Clutter. Cables. Boxes.



    All seem to be quite counter to Apples 'new' clean design philosophy.



    On top of my objection to external cases, my extra drives will be running on firewire - which is not as fast as SATA. Although I doubt I'll require that type of speed on an external drive, I find it odd that in making the new case almost 4 inches taller they weren't able to find room to place two more 1" tall hard drives in it.



    The *tiny* majority who like messy desks can continue to be Apples bitches, and find themselves (this time) on the losing-end of the trade-off.
  • Reply 6 of 82
    bungebunge Posts: 7,329member
    Can I burn a DVD from iDVD with an external drive? Can I use iTunes with all extrenal drives? Can I use backup to make a DVD-R on an external drive?
  • Reply 7 of 82
    eotkueotku Posts: 37member
    Personally, One internal superdrive and an external firewire 52X CD burner works for me. I would rather have a little clutter than a huge enclosure that I can't fit on my desk and that howls.



    I am sure that one of the reasons to limit expandability probably has to do with heat. The more stuff you put into these boxes the more heat that will be generated and the design of the box would have to take that into account. Everyone was screaming about the MDD G4 noise. They fixed that.... but you can't have everything. This enclosure was designed for the future in mind. Things will only get hotter as speeds increase and the sizes of HD get bigger.



    I guess they could go to liquid nitrogen cooling! But then that would probably drive the price up a bit!
  • Reply 8 of 82
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,438member
    Quote:

    Can I burn a DVD from iDVD with an external drive? Can I use iTunes with all extrenal drives? Can I use backup to make a DVD-R on an external drive?



    iDVD is for Internal Superdrives. You want external, use the 3rd party DVD Burning Software available. Enough of the feckin' whining.



    Quote:

    If I want to make a quick copy of a CD for a client, I will now have to create an image on the HD, and then burn the copy. I would prefer to have two drives and copy directly from one to the other. Making an image and then burning it would be okay when I only have one disc to copy, but if I have to copy 10-15 discs I'll be getting pissed off in a short amount of time.



    Well Mr "Pro" buy an external drive then. Jeezus you guys will find anything to complain about.



    Quote:

    The short-sightedness of this new case design extends beyond the exclusion of a second optical drive bay. The major flaw is the fact that it only has two HD bays.



    I have four 200 gig drives in my current machine. When I move up to the G5, I will be forced to purchase 2 external drive cases in order to use my current drives.



    Yes and how many people 4 feckin 200GB drives? LOL...don't you realize your situation is unique? Most of us would be happen with 1 200Giger. You ask Apple to account for all users and that just can't be done. Look for a Raid box or something if you want to cut down on the clutter.



    We can all come up with reason why Powermacs are lacking in a particular area. As long as what I need is "possible" then I'm not too worried.



    Does anyone even know if PATA is supported beyond the Superdrive?
  • Reply 9 of 82
    eotkueotku Posts: 37member
    hmurchison



    Spot on. It just goes to show that no matter what you give them some people will never be satisified.
  • Reply 10 of 82
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Eotku

    hmurchison



    Spot on. It just goes to show that no matter what you give them some people will never be satisified.




    ... and the Apple apologists all pop out of the woodwork.
  • Reply 11 of 82
    isegwayisegway Posts: 133member
    Quote:

    Well Mr "Pro" buy an external drive then. Jeezus you guys will find anything to complain about.



    These guys aren't complaining! I asked them WHY they wanted another drive in the "enclosure" so they told me.
  • Reply 12 of 82
    Many (if not most) Artists and Musicians use Macs. We need cost effective, expandable machines. The G5 is great (all hail the G5) but unfortunately doesn't meet my needs as well as the G4 \ . The missing PCI slots are the biggest problem, but limiting me to one optical drive is adding insult to injury. I'm elated at the G5 for the sake of the platform, but devastated that I'm forced to consider *gag* a wrong way switch.
  • Reply 13 of 82
    isegwayisegway Posts: 133member
    Can you buy seperate, empty G cases? LIke for the G4 now or the G5 in the future?



    What people are saying is that they want a much bigger case to contain all this extra equipment. Why not buy a second G5 case and fill er up with the extras? Or would that be too much extra space?
  • Reply 14 of 82
    eotkueotku Posts: 37member
    The *tiny* majority who like messy desks can continue to be Apples bitches, and find themselves (this time) on the losing-end of the trade-off.



    Fine... Build your own Windoze box and move on.
  • Reply 15 of 82
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Eotku





    Fine... Build your own Windoze box and move on.




    No, thanks, but I'm sure you'll be fine with your Bondi iMac.



    It always amazes me how quickly, when they read something that raises issue with an Apple product, that the zealots suggest to fellow Mac users that they purchase a Windows box.



    Less coffee, more thinking, please.
  • Reply 16 of 82
    Quote:

    Originally posted by iSegway

    Can you buy seperate, empty G cases? LIke for the G4 now or the G5 in the future?



    What people are saying is that they want a much bigger case to contain all this extra equipment. Why not buy a second G5 case and fill er up with the extras? Or would that be too much extra space?




    I wish Apple or someone would design an extension case w/the appropriate high bandwidth connector for extra PCI cards, drives etc. but it sounds like what your talking about would amount to networking two computers, which is a different thing, I'm not sure how this would work?
  • Reply 17 of 82
    bungebunge Posts: 7,329member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by iSegway

    These guys aren't complaining! I asked them WHY they wanted another drive in the "enclosure" so they told me.



    Thank you. I'm sorry those morons had to mess up your thread.



    I'm currently working with an LCD iMac I purchased as a stop gap, waiting for a G5. Because I was limited by the lack of expandability in this machine, I've come to notice how the lack of an extra bay for an optical drive can effect the user experience.



    Contrary to what some morons believe, I have no complaints about the G5. I say an additional optical drive bay is a good possible future enhancement.
  • Reply 18 of 82
    jccbinjccbin Posts: 476member
    Professionals who need more than the storage space offered in the G5 will have to buy and use Xserve RAIDs. Your new G5 can connect directly to the XRAID for more storage. Rack mount an external CD-RW/DVD-RW in the same chassis as the XRAID.



    The G5 is a workstation. Your storage is SUPPOSED to be elsewhere, along with your external media drives.



    Put in a little rack system (there are dozens of them available from cheap to expensive).



    The answer as to WHY these people think they need more than one optical drive is that they have not taken the time to think, in my not humble opinion.
  • Reply 19 of 82
    murbotmurbot Posts: 5,262member
    When features are removed from any product line, people will be upset. We get used to using these features, and it's upsetting to have to adjust your way of doing things. This same type of discussion came up with the PowerBook G4's introduction. Lack of expansion bays for dual batteries, additional hard drives, etc.



    It may be unique to have 4 200 GB drives in a PowerMac, but I really don't think it's that unique to have more than 2. More and more people are doing high end digital video editing, 3D work, etc, and these things eat up gigabytes like crazy. Drive prices are also coming down, so more and more people are buying multiple drives.



    I'd be upset too if I had extra drives that would not fit into my new "upgraded" machine. You have to agree that this clean looking new tower suddenly doesn't look as hot with 2 FireWire drives and a FireWire CD-RW drive attached to it.



    When I had my PowerMac, I LOVED having 2 optical drives. Duplicating CDs was easy, burning 2 discs at once, having one drive still available while I was ripping a CD in iTunes with the other, etc, etc. It was a great feature.



    I certainly DO understand users that are angry over this though. Can't really blame them. However, I have a feeling the quantum leap in performance they'll see with a dual 1.25GHz G5 may help to alleviate their hostilities.
  • Reply 20 of 82
    isegwayisegway Posts: 133member
    If you are someone that has a G4 at the moment and plan on getting the G5 can you connect the old G4 with its storage and drive bays to your new G5?



    Is this an easy solution?
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