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Fruitful Editing
External $100 Sony DVD Burner Likes Macs
- 2007.10.10
The 18x Sony DRX830U drive reviewed here has been replaced by the 20x DRX840U, which is currently (Dec. 2008) available from Amazon.com for $79.99. It should work every bit as well with the Mac as the older drive.
My previous article was about how to rip your DVDs to your computer. This time around, we'll be looking at the Sony DRX830U DVD burner. Whether you need a burner for data backup of all those MPEG-4 files you just made or to burn custom DVDs, this Sony burner may just be what you're looking for.

These days, just about every computer comes with a DVD writer or a DVD/CD-RW combo drive. My iMac G5 came with a 4x Apple branded SuperDrive, which has worked for the past two years but is really quite picky about media. When I was lucky, it would burn at the full 4x speed, but most of the time, it burned at 2x - or even 1x.
I'd thought about getting a fast external DVD burner, both to get a nice speed boost and also to be able to use it with whatever computer I needed to connect it to.
As Mac users, we're fortunate to have an excellent operating system, great free software, and some pretty long lasting computers. But make a trip down to your local Staples or Office Max, and you're instantly reminded that we live in a Windows world.
Just head over to the internal/external drive aisle and count the Mac compatible items:
- Hard drives? Good
- External hard drives? Good
- Internal DVD writers? Not bad
- External DVD burners? Terrible
Or is it?
I spent months trying to decide on an external burner. Each one in the local stores read "Windows only". I looked online, and the Mac compatible burners were always sold at an average of $60 more than the Windows version!
It's just not fair. We Mac users should be treated equally with our different OS brethren. General software, that I can understand. But can't a company write a simple OS X driver for a burner without inflating the price?
Well, I was fed up. I had chosen the Sony DVD DRX830U 18x burner because it was fast and cheap - and the reviewers on Amazon gave it good marks. As I was scrolling through the comments, I started to notice that a lot were from Mac users - and how this particular burner worked fine with Macs.
I set off to the store, determined to take my chances. I'd plug it in, and if it didn't work, oh well. There's always eBay.
The box was clearly labeled with Windows; no Macintosh compatibility was stated whatsoever, not even in the documentation. I unwrapped it all, plugged the cable into the USB 2.0 port on my PowerBook, and turned it on.
No response at first from OS X, but when I opened the drive and put a blank DVD in, it showed up! No strange patches to install, no third party software needed. It worked just the way we Mac users would expect it to. (Note: This was under Tiger. I have yet to try this using Panther.)
I'm a big fan of Toast, and the latest version works great with this external burner. I've experienced write speeds much lower than the box stated, though. So far the top speed (with any media) is 8x for DVDs, which is still pretty decent.
The burner worked great with both my iMac and my PowerBook. So far the device has only given me one or two coasters, which were likely caused by software and not the drive.
I feel like I've added some incredible functionality to my
three-year-old iMac, and that's what Low End Mac is all about, right?
Brian Gray is a journalist from North Carolina who enjoys writing, the beach, and tinkering with Macs.
Recent Fruitful Editing Columns
- Kodak Zi6 Compact HiDef Video Camera, 08.31. Selling for under $150, Kodak's Zi6 is light, compact, and produces good quality video for a low-end device.
- Leaving Linux for a MacBook Pro, 04.03. Running the $550 HP notebook with Linux just didn't satisfy, and a good deal on a first generation MacBook Pro made coming back easy.
- Good-bye PowerBook, Hello Linux on a Laptop, 03.02. Why shouldn't a cheap PC notebook with Linux be an adequate replacement for an old PowerBook?
- Nikon D40 Provides Lots of Quality at a Nice Price, 10.28. For most photographers most of the time, Nikon's D40 DSLR has all the features and quality necessary and an affordable price.
- More in the Fruitful Editing index.
Links for the Day
- Mac of the Day: Power Mac 4400, Nov. 1996 - Apple does cheap to compete with clones - and nobody is impressed.
- Group of the Day: LisaList supports Lisa users.
- November 7 in LEM history: 00: PowerBook Lite dreams - Our first Macs - 01: OS 9, OS X, or Linux? - 02: Xserve for the classroom - 03: Panther on slot-loading iMacs - High capacity Lombard/Pismo battery - 05: Clean keyboard residue from laptop screen with ROR - SeaMonkey - 06: Dan Bricklin, inventor of the spreadsheet - Turn any Mac into a gameshow buzzer - 07: The transforming PowerBook 1400 - PowerBook 540 on Compact Flash
- Support Low End Mac
Recent Content on Low End Mac
- Quad-Core CPU Makes Sense in MacBook Pro, OS X 10.6 Causing Overheating, Overseas Power, and More, The 'Book Review, 11.06. Also Late 2009 MacBook reviewed, how to add RAM to new MacBook, 18.4in Acer notebook used Intel i7, and SanDisk SSD chosen for Sony VAIO X.
- Dumping Macs for Google Apps, SSD in iMac, Late 2009 iMac Performance Problems, and More, Mac News Review, 11.06. /newsrev/09mnr/1106.html
- WiFi Paranoia, iMac-O-Lantern, Magic Mouse Does Click, Free Clipboard Managers, and More, Charles W. Moore, Miscellaneous Ramblings, 11.05. Also strange time stamps, problem with ColorIt on Intel Mac, and the story behind OS X 10.5.4 install discs.
- IDE Is Dead; Long Live SATA!, Dan Knight, Mac Musings, 11.04. SATA has displaced parallel ATA. While IDE hard drives haven't disappeared, the best deals are in SATA hard drives.
- QuickTime X in Snow Leopard Imports, Trims, and Publishes Video Quickly and Easily, Alan Zisman, Zis Mac, 11.04. The long, slow process of importing video into iMovie to edit it, then render it to another format, is history as QuickTime X does that much more quickly.
- More links in our archive.
Recent Deals
- Best Mac Pro Deals, 11.03. Used 2.66 GHz 4-core, $1,300; 3.0 8-core. $2,299; refurb 2.66 4-core Nehalem, $2,149; 2.93, $2,549; 2.26 8-core, $2,799; 2.93, $4,999.
- Best iPhone Deals, 11.03. New 8 GB iPhone 3G, $$99; refurb 16 GB 3GS, $149; new, $199; 32 GB, $299.
- Best 12" PowerBook G4 Deals, 11.03. Used 867 MHz SperDrive, $348; 1 GHz, $499; 1.33 Combo, $298; SD, $559; 1.5 Combo, $448; SuperDrive, $589.
- Best Power Mac G3 and PCI Video Card Deals, 11.02. Used beige 300 MHz, $25; G4/366, $49; blue & white 350, $80; 400, $90; 450, $105; PCI video cards from $15; shipping additional.
- Best Power Mac G4 and AGP Video Card Deals, 11.02. Used 400 MHz, $50; 733 MHz, $69; 933 MHz, $209; 1.25 GHz dual, $299.
- Best 15" MacBook Pro Deals, 11.02. Used 2.0 GHz, $800; 2.2, $900; 2.4, $1,000; refurb 2.53, $1,449; 2.66, $1,699; 2.8, $1,949; 3.06, $2,169; new 2.53, $1,579; 2.66, $1,799; more.
- Best Mac mini Deals, 10.30. Used 1.33 GHz G4 mini, $379; 1.42, $389; 1.5, $419; 1.83 GHz Core Duo, $350; Core 2, $439; new 2.26 GHz nVidia, $580; 2.53 GHz, $770; Server, $990.
- Best G4 iBook Deals, 10.30. Used 12" 1.07 GHz Combo, $225; 1.33 GHz, $298; 14" 1 GHz, $349; 1.33 GHz, $398; 1.42 GHz SuperDrive, $498.
- Best Classic Mac OS Deals, 10.30. System 6.0.8 floppies, $10; 7.1, $12; 7.5, $20; 7.5 CD, $4; 7.6 $13; 8.1, $11; 8.5, $20; 8.6, $90; 9.0, $20; 9.2.2, $30.
- More deals in our archive.
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