MP 1,1-5,1 Any recommendations for DVD / CD drives for faster audiobook ripping?

[Jigga Beef]

I just inhered a ton of Audiobooks on CD from a family member (About 60).



I’d like to rip these and put them in .M4B format with the Audiobook Builder 2 app which I have used a few times over the last few weeks with audiobook CDS I had laying around.



The issue I am having importing via the Music App on my Mac Pro 5,1 is PAINFULLY slow. I have used both an Internal DVD / Drive (GH61N Hitachi 16X) and the Apple USB Super Drive which needs to be connected directly to a USB 2.0 port to be powered/



I haven’t dealt with optical media in about a decade so I am not sure what the market looks like for faster DVD drives and if that will even really help for ripping audio.



I don’t mind if is internal for a Mac Pro 5,1 since I can swap it out in my DVD cage or if its external and I can hook it up to my USB 3.0 card.

 

[Nermal]

How slow is "painfully"? A 16x drive should be able to rip a full CD in around five minutes; if it's slower than that then there might be a problem elsewhere.

 

[bookemdano]

I can speak from experience (ripping audio CDs with XLD) that the USB Superdrive is slower than molasses. It does work, of course but speed is not one of its virtues.

My cMP 4,1 came outfitted with a HL-DT-ST GH41N. Not sure if that's what yours has or not (I know Apple changed optical drive makes/models regularly) (I see now where you said yours is a GH61N), but it is a fair bit faster than the USB Superdrive. Still, nothing stellar.

My champion drive for fast ripping is an Optiarc AD-7250H DVD+-RW. Not even sure where I got it, but it regularly achieves 20x ripping a CD in XLD's secure mode (which is very slow and methodical). Of course the inner tracks of a CD will rip slower than the outer tracks, so the average was probably more like 12-15x--but that is blazing compared to the GH41N (average probably around 7-8x) or the USB SuperDrive (like 2x).

That said, there are probably lots of other models that rip as fast or faster as the Optiarc I have. I tested about ten different drives of different makes, models and ages and that one was the champ, but there are thousands of other drives out there. You might try a google search on "fastest audio ripping drives". Unfortunately, most of the results will be from 10+ years ago when audio ripping was a bigger thing, but there are some more recent discussions about it. And you may be able to pick up one of the recommended drives dirt cheap used on ebay, etc.

Edit: As a general rule, you're going to get much faster performance from 5.25" desktop/tower-type drives than you will from laptop style drives like the USB SuperDrive. The smaller drives only work off 5 volts and are designed to be as power efficient as possible. So scratch those off your list and concentrate on the full size drives.

 

[Jigga Beef]

I can speak from experience (ripping audio CDs with XLD) that the USB Superdrive is slower than molasses. It does work, of course but speed is not one of its virtues.

My cMP 4,1 came outfitted with a HL-DT-ST GH41N. Not sure if that's what yours has or not (I know Apple changed optical drive makes/models regularly) (I see now where you said yours is a GH61N), but it is a fair bit faster than the USB Superdrive. Still, nothing stellar.

My champion drive for fast ripping is an Optiarc AD-7250H DVD+-RW. Not even sure where I got it, but it regularly achieves 20x ripping a CD in XLD's secure mode (which is very slow and methodical). Of course the inner tracks of a CD will rip slower than the outer tracks, so the average was probably more like 12-15x--but that is blazing compared to the GH41N (average probably around 7-8x) or the USB SuperDrive (like 2x).

That said, there are probably lots of other models that rip as fast or faster as the Optiarc I have. I tested about ten different drives of different makes, models and ages and that one was the champ, but there are thousands of other drives out there. You might try a google search on "fastest audio ripping drives". Unfortunately, most of the results will be from 10+ years ago when audio ripping was a bigger thing, but there are some more recent discussions about it. And you may be able to pick up one of the recommended drives dirt cheap used on ebay, etc.

Edit: As a general rule, you're going to get much faster performance from 5.25" desktop/tower-type drives than you will from laptop style drives like the USB SuperDrive. The smaller drives only work off 5 volts and are designed to be as power efficient as possible. So scratch those off your list and concentrate on the full size drives.

I am going to check out the Optiarc AD-7250H DVD+-RW

Thank you!

 

[bookemdano]

I am going to check out the Optiarc AD-7250H DVD+-RW

Thank you!

If you pick one up, please report back if it performs well for you. Conceivably, there could be different revisions of that drive (it's quite common for optical drives). If it helps, mine is running firmware 100A. Judging from the listings I'm seeing on ebay, I'm sure I must have harvested it from one of the numerous Dell PCs I had over the years. Next time I'm in front of my Mac Pro I will open it up and take a look at the label to see which hardware revision it is and will post in the thread.

As I'm sure you know, any scratches, or dirt on either side of the disc can cause ripping to become very slow no matter what drive you use. Scratches on the label side are worse than on the bottom because the foil where the data is encoded is much closer to the top. The best test for judging ripping speed is a known good, very clean and undamaged disc.

Also, some discs just rip faster than others, which must have something to do with the way they were manufactured. So to get a good idea of a drive's capabilties, rip a bunch of different discs from different manufacturers. Sometimes they vary by a surprising amount.

Good luck!