What do I ask for if I want a stand alone box and cable to house a DVD drive?

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Geektastic

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#130687 24-Sep-2013 10:41

I have a Lightscribe drive in one of the optical slots of my Mac Pro.

I am about to replace that computer with an iMac and want to move the Lightscribe drive to a stand alone box which has a USB (ideally 3) connector so that I can plug the drive in to the iMac.

I've looked on line and there are a myriad of boxes, most of which seem to be for putting HDDs in.

What is the correct term for what I am looking for so that I can find it?!

Poll

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Ultimate Geek

#901770 24-Sep-2013 11:16

Is your dvd drive a pata (ide) or sata drive?

What you are looking for is a 5 1/4 inch external drive enclosure, you'll probably have very little luck finding a sata one but pata ones do seem to be available on TradeMe

Geektastic

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#901796 24-Sep-2013 11:38

Poll: Is your dvd drive a pata (ide) or sata drive?

What you are looking for is a 5 1/4 inch external drive enclosure, you'll probably have very little luck finding a sata one but pata ones do seem to be available on TradeMe

Does this help answer that?

HL-DT-ST DVD-RAM GH22LP21:

Firmware Revision:1.00

Interconnect:ATAPI

Burn Support:Yes (Generic Drive Support)

Profile Path:None

Cache:2048 KB

Reads DVD:Yes

CD-Write:-R, -RW

DVD-Write:-R, -R DL, -RAM, -RW, +R, +R DL, +RW

Write Strategies:CD-TAO, CD-SAO, CD-Raw, DVD-DAO

Media:To show the available burn speeds, insert a disc and choose View > Refresh

stevenz

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#902416 25-Sep-2013 13:11

That's a 5.25" IDE (ATAPI) unit. You want one of these:

http://www.ascent.co.nz/productspecification.aspx?ItemID=335479

There's no real benefit of it being USB3 given that an optical DVD drive won't even push USB2 anywhere near its limit.

Pretty sure that's the same model enclosure I've got actually, just runs off a standard IEC power lead (jug cord) and is a well made unit.

@KnightNZ

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#902736 25-Sep-2013 22:32

stevenz: That's a 5.25" IDE (ATAPI) unit. You want one of these:

http://www.ascent.co.nz/productspecification.aspx?ItemID=335479

There's no real benefit of it being USB3 given that an optical DVD drive won't even push USB2 anywhere near its limit.

Pretty sure that's the same model enclosure I've got actually, just runs off a standard IEC power lead (jug cord) and is a well made unit.

Brillo pads! Thanks. That looks like exactly what I need.