

Compared to most everything else in the technology universe, the tried-and-true optical drive has managed to hang around well beyond what it's creator likely had in mind, but it's pretty obvious that 2011 is to the ODD what 1998 was to the floppy drive. For years, ODDs have been standard fare, spinning CDs, DVDs, HD-DVDs ( however briefly) and Blu-ray Discs, not to mention a few other formats that didn't do much to deserve a mention. Pundits have argued that you could tether a USB SuperDrive to the new mini and save $20 in the process compared to last year's rig, but does relying on a cabled accessory go hand-in-hand with beauty and simplicity? No, and I've every reason to believe that Apple would agree.ĭespite the obvious - that consumers would buy a mini to reduce the sheer burden of operating a convoluted desktop setup - Apple's gone and yanked what has become a staple in both Macs and PCs alike. This year, a $599 model showed up on my doorstep promising the same, but instead it delivered a noticeable drop in actual functionality. Last year, that bantam box arrived with a $699 price tag, pep in its step and a personality that could charm even the most hardened desktop owner. But frankly, it doesn't much matter - Apple's officially done with the optical drive, and there's no evidence more strikingly clear than the mid 2011 refresh of its Mac mini. The CD and DVD player had regular horizontally deployed tray loading drives and an adapter would not have been necessary, however, a mini CD put into the adapter played perfectly fine in both devices.I don't like it. We also tested the adaptor in a Sony CD player and an AVEX DVD player.

Just by looking at the small number of Macs I have access to, I found CD-RW and DVD-RW drives from Matshita, Pioneer, and Panasonic and it looks like that Apple buys the least expensive instead of the best and most reliable drive. While Pioneer has discontinued this obviously flawed product, it’s still available at retailers and also in currently shipping products like the Mac Mini. This page for instance has recent reports on Pioneer DVR-K06 reliability issues, and there seem to be plenty of those. Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to be the only problem with the Pioneer DVR-K06 drive. Meaning, the adapter worked fine in these drives: However, it’s not the Mac Mini but rather the DVD-RW drive, which is to blame here. It worked perfectly fine in all Macs but the Core-2-Duo Mini. We have tested the Memorex Mini Disk Adapter in an iBook, a PowerBook, a MacMini G4, a Mac Mini Core-Solo and a Mac Mini Core-2-Duo. I admit the Memorex model looks somewhat fragile and I’m sure that there is a reason why it’s sold in packs of three.

However, there really is no need to wait for Apple to ship such a thing, with a little luck you may be able to pick up a Mini CD Adapter from Philips or Memorex.
#Apple cd player for a mac mini crack
The disks are much harder to crack and they also fit nicely into a regular mailing envelope.Ĭonsidering an AppleInsider report about a patent applications filed by Apple, concerning different 8 cm to 12 cm optical disk adapters, it looks like Apple finds those smaller disks convenient as well. These 3-Inch CDs and DVDs are quite cool, easy to carry and due to their small size also very easy to ship. In the past I have frequently used Pocket CDs, which have 210 MB or 24 audio-minutes of storage space and also Mini DVDs, which have 1.4GB or 33 video minutes of storage space. Noncircular or small discs may become lodged in the drive. Irregularly shaped discs or discs smaller than 12 cm are not supported. Warning: The optical drive in your Mac mini supports standard circular 12 cm discs. Generally, slot loading drives seem to be more convenient and offer a very clean look but are also more prone to jamming most importantly however, slot loading drives don’t accept 3' mini DVDs or Pocket CDs and Apple warns about using those. It used to be that only on Apple computers one would predominately find slot loading optical drives (CD and DVD drives) while on PCs the less expansive but often faster tray loading drives were used. However, I don’t think those small silver optical disk became very popular ever and the rise of the slot loading drives surely didn’t help. Some video cameras use writable mini DVDs for content recording.
#Apple cd player for a mac mini drivers
Today you find mini disks included with some computer accessories, used as a cheap way to include drivers and other software. Even before writable mini disks, the 8-centimeter in diameter small CDs and DVDs (a.k.a Pocket-CD), became available/affordable, I really liked that small form-factor.
