What if I wear out my DVD-R drive?

[mark-itguy]

I have a new Santa Rosa\LED MBP. Although my CD and DVD burning usage is probably no more than average, I rip CD's a lot, and of currently am ripping my entire DVD collection to re-encode them for my Apple TV...

So the question is, what if I I wear out my DVD-R drive? Is it all that hard to replace? Should I buy an external USB or FireWire DVD-R to "save" my internal one from wearing out?

Comments?

 

[John01021988]

well if you are using it that heavily, I would recommend to buy an external one, which I guess will be faster than the Superdrive

 

[mark-itguy]

well if you are using it that heavily, I would recommend to buy an external one, which I guess will be faster than the Superdrive

Uhhh. Oh yeah... I guess an external one would bound to be faster, for both ripping and even burning...

I know of the xlr8yourmac site, but their DVD-R database for external drives was pretty limited last time I looked.

Does anyone know of an external DVD-R drive that will work with iLife apps?

 

[Scarlet Fever]

It's a bit like buying a ferrari, and never driving it because you don't want to wear out the engine.

Your MBP was built and designed to be used. I say just use it. If you were to be concerned about any part, I would have said the HDD is more precious. It's the part that's going to store all your important data, and which is probably going to die first.

 

[mkrishnan]

Almost four years ago, I ripped about 250 CDs in a week on my iBook. I've ripped many more since then, as well as played many DVDs, etc, etc. I don't think your chances of wearing out the drive are great unless you're ripping thousands of discs.

 

[zioxide]

If it wears out, AppleCare should replace it as long as you're in your warranty period.

However, I doubt the chances of you wearing that out are high.