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Blu-ray on Mac Pro early 2008

C

Claus.L

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 2, 2008
11
0
Hi,
I'd like to have an intern Blu-ray drive (preferably RW) on my Mac Pro from early 2008.
I found one from MCE ( http://mcetech.com/ ) which looks nice, but is extremely expensive over here in Europe.
Do you have experience with other internal drives working on OS X and fitting into the drive slot?
Thanks very much!
Claus
 
Claus.L said:
Hi,
I'd like to have an intern Blu-ray drive (preferably RW) on my Mac Pro from early 2008.
I found one from MCE ( http://mcetech.com/ ) which looks nice, but is extremely expensive over here in Europe.
Do you have experience with other internal drives working on OS X and fitting into the drive slot?
Thanks very much!
Claus
Click to expand...

I have the MCE 12x drive in my 2008. A few of the advantages with this drive is that it uses the existing PATA interface already prewired in the machine, it's bootable and works in Windows with zero issues.

You can also install a standard SATA Blu-ray drive by removing the tray bezel, but you would need to route a SATA cable to one of the spare SATA headers behind the fan assembly. You need a cable with a low-profile, right-angle connector on one side (in order to clear the fan assembly when it's reattached) and a Molex to SATA power adapter for power. OWC sells a Pioneer drive kit that includes the necessary cables and installation instructions. This is a US vendor though, so I'm not quite sure how expensive it would be to get one delivered to Europe.

A few caveats with SATA BD drives in 2006-08 machines, though:

1. The spare "hidden" SATA headers/ports are not bootable. So in other words, you wouldn't be able to boot from discs.

2. If you also boot into Windows, you need to install the AHCI drivers from Intel in order for the drive to show up in Windows.

3. A lot of SATA BD drives cause sleep issues in OS X. You need to disable hard drive sleep in the System Preferences to prevent the drive from "disappearing".


I know that MCE has authorized dealers in Europe. Is it simply a case of the dealers charging a steep premium?
 
Try LG, or Pioneer

I've been using LG WH10LS30K in my 2009 Mac Pro, I haven't had any problems, reads and writes CD's, DVD's and burns without any hiccups.
The drive that came with my Mac is LG/Hitachi, same as Blu-Ray, I've heard of Pioneer drives having issues with sleep, but do your home work, hit the forums, Apple or otherwise and see what most people are happy with.
 
CaptainChunk said:
I have the MCE 12x drive in my 2008. A few of the advantages with this drive is that it uses the existing PATA interface already prewired in the machine, it's bootable and works in Windows with zero issues.

You can also install a standard SATA Blu-ray drive by removing the tray bezel, but you would need to route a SATA cable to one of the spare SATA headers behind the fan assembly. You need a cable with a low-profile, right-angle connector on one side (in order to clear the fan assembly when it's reattached) and a Molex to SATA power adapter for power. OWC sells a Pioneer drive kit that includes the necessary cables and installation instructions. This is a US vendor though, so I'm not quite sure how expensive it would be to get one delivered to Europe.

A few caveats with SATA BD drives in 2006-08 machines, though:

1. The spare "hidden" SATA headers/ports are not bootable. So in other words, you wouldn't be able to boot from discs.

2. If you also boot into Windows, you need to install the AHCI drivers from Intel in order for the drive to show up in Windows.

3. A lot of SATA BD drives cause sleep issues in OS X. You need to disable hard drive sleep in the System Preferences to prevent the drive from "disappearing".


I know that MCE has authorized dealers in Europe. Is it simply a case of the dealers charging a steep premium?
Click to expand...

While the odd ports are not bootable with non-native OS'es and boot discs, Mac related discs and or boot discs will work on the odd sata ports. Seems Apple made those ports only to work with their own OS.
 
Go with a SATA BD drive - you'll still have the original pATA drive for booting if you really need to.

I have an LG GGW-H20L run off of one of the SATA optical ports, and it works great. Burns blu-rays that are watchable or data backups.
 
CaptainChunk said:
I have the MCE 12x drive in my 2008. A few of the advantages with this drive is that it uses the existing PATA interface already prewired in the machine, it's bootable and works in Windows with zero issues.

You can also install a standard SATA Blu-ray drive by removing the tray bezel, but you would need to route a SATA cable to one of the spare SATA headers behind the fan assembly. You need a cable with a low-profile, right-angle connector on one side (in order to clear the fan assembly when it's reattached) and a Molex to SATA power adapter for power. OWC sells a Pioneer drive kit that includes the necessary cables and installation instructions. This is a US vendor though, so I'm not quite sure how expensive it would be to get one delivered to Europe.

A few caveats with SATA BD drives in 2006-08 machines, though:

1. The spare "hidden" SATA headers/ports are not bootable. So in other words, you wouldn't be able to boot from discs.

2. If you also boot into Windows, you need to install the AHCI drivers from Intel in order for the drive to show up in Windows.

3. A lot of SATA BD drives cause sleep issues in OS X. You need to disable hard drive sleep in the System Preferences to prevent the drive from "disappearing".


I know that MCE has authorized dealers in Europe. Is it simply a case of the dealers charging a steep premium?
Click to expand...

Thanks for all the information.

The dealers over here want about 250 Euro for the same drive, that gets sold in the US for around 170$. It's about 2x the US price. That's insane!
 
Claus.L said:
Thanks for all the information.

The dealers over here want about 250 Euro for the same drive, that gets sold in the US for around 170$. It's about 2x the US price. That's insane!
Click to expand...

I think Europe has higher cost of business, steeper regulation, and GST or VAT taxes built into the price.

I've read stories about Europeans flying to New York for a shopping spree to buy stuff they were going to buy at home anyway. The price difference of the goods pays for the trip!

Quite the opposite when I visited Europe. Damn near had a heart attack everything cost so much. Even Canada seems pricey to me!
 
I got a Samsung BD Drive a few months ago. Getting the SATA cable through was a bit tricky (just requires a lot of disassembly), but easier than finding the airport cable behind the motherboard :p

However, Windows won't recognise the ODD SATA ports (at least not without some BIOS and Terminal tinkering, someone please correct me if I'm wrong, as I haven't been able to get this to work)
 
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