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Media (Apple) Businesses Media Apple

Apple SuperDrive Gets Faster....For Free 58

Posted by timothy from the good-upgrade dept.
garaxiel writes "Just made a punch over to apple's website to notice a link detailing an update to all SuperDrives (or most; they provide a way to check if you're up to date) so that the superdrive can use the newer, faster media. Heck, if this is all I had to do to get a faster burner back in the day, I would have gladly switched to Apple!"
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Apple SuperDrive Gets Faster....For Free More

Apple SuperDrive Gets Faster....For Free

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  • Go on then. (Score:3, Funny)

    by WasterDave ( 20047 ) <davep@zedke[ ]om ['p.c' in gap]> on Wednesday April 02, 2003 @04:59PM (#5647764)
    if this is all I had to do to get a faster burner back in the day, I would have gladly switched to Apple!

    So do it now.

    Dave

  • No, it doesn't (Score:5, Informative)

    by RalphBNumbers ( 655475 ) on Wednesday April 02, 2003 @05:01PM (#5647781)
    From the FAQ on the linked site:
    Will this update enable my 2x SuperDrive to write at a higher speed?

    This update enables you to read from and write to the new media, but it does not increase the speed of the drive. In fact, the updated 2x SuperDrive writes to this new media at 1x. So to obtain the highest performance from your 2x SuperDrive, we recommend that you continue using 2x DVD-R media just as you do today.

    So, your drive doesn't get faster. In fact, if you buy the wrong kind of media, it gets slower.
    • And Mac users can't seem to understand why everyone else thinks they're stupid.

      They can't even read!

      • Re:No, it doesn't (Score:5, Informative)

        by Drakino ( 10965 ) on Wednesday April 02, 2003 @11:50PM (#5650446) Journal
        And Mac users can't seem to understand why everyone else thinks they're stupid.

        Ironicially, this proves the point in the other direction. The person who submitted the article said "I would have gladly switched to Apple" indicating he is currently not a Mac user.

        It's also a duplicate story, posted here on Slashdot months ago [slashdot.org]
        • One PC user couldn't read the webpage, another one couldn't read the article about the webpage. Sounds like it's the PC users who can't read. But I might be misreading it, having a Mac and all.

  • RTFA. (Score:5, Informative)

    by mikedaisey ( 413058 ) on Wednesday April 02, 2003 @05:02PM (#5647799) Homepage

    You do not get a faster SuperDrive than you currently have. You'd know that if you had actually read the page you linked to rather than spasmodically sending it straight to Slashdot. From the same page:

    "Will this update enable my 2x SuperDrive to write at a higher speed?
    This update enables you to read from and write to the new media, but it does not increase the speed of the drive."

    As I said the other day, I thought that previewing was supposed to help improve accuracy?
    • and as a sidenote, 'back in the day' (couple of years backwards) you could by flashing the rom(much in the same way you flash(ed) your dvd-drive to be region free) increase the writing speed(like, from 4x to 8x), and still can sometimes, but it gets pretty irrelevant if you burn at 48x or 52x..

      on pc.

    • It is actually possible to have a firmware update increase the speed of your drive. A friend of mine did it (albeit accidentally) when flashing their dvd drive to be region free (It was a 12x, they used a rom for the 16x version of the drive). The problem with this however, is that the 12x drive obviously wasnt designed to be run faster than that (or presumably it would already) and problems could occur with the extra heat generated. I dont thik the drive lasted too long.

      OTOH, I wouldnt be surprised if the

  • Old update, so drive doesn't destroy itself. (Score:3, Informative)

    by jkujawa ( 56195 ) on Wednesday April 02, 2003 @05:04PM (#5647818) Homepage
    This update has been out for months. The drives, as shipped, would destroy themselves if they encountered fast media. This patch makes them able to write the new media, but they still run at the rated speed of the drive. They don't burn any faster with this patch.

  • This isn't news... (Score:3, Informative)

    by NetCurl ( 54699 ) on Wednesday April 02, 2003 @05:05PM (#5647826)
    Check the lower right hand side, and I quote:

    Document Posted 11-07-2002.

    This is five months old.

    • Re:This isn't news... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Gruturo ( 141223 )
      I just upmodded you and the previous post - I don't know who is the lamer which modded the 2 of you as redundant for saying something exactly right, for the first time in this discussion, but he clearly must have had a bad day, or he feels sooo trollish tonight.

      The article IS five months old, and the previous post is also right - being a re-branded Pioneer drive, it *really* risks getting damaged if the new 4X media is inserted in a drive with the old firmware, as you can verify on pioneer's website [pioneer.co.jp].

      Bah.
    • ...and what's more, it's been linked on Apple's homepage [apple.com] since then.

  • No it doesn't (Score:5, Informative)

    by moosesocks ( 264553 ) on Wednesday April 02, 2003 @05:05PM (#5647830) Homepage
    The update doesn't make the drives write faster. The article, says that the update allows 4x media to be written to at 1x or 2x speeds on the SuperDrive. I believe it has something to do with the new 4x media being slightly different (I seem to recall that this also effects PC DVD-R drives as well, and similar updates are availible for those drives)

    To quote directly from the FAQ:

    Will this update enable my 2x SuperDrive to write at a higher speed?
    This update enables you to read from and write to the new media, but it does not increase the speed of the drive. In fact, the updated 2x SuperDrive writes to this new media at 1x. So to obtain the highest performance from your 2x SuperDrive, we recommend that you continue using 2x DVD-R media just as you do today.

  • Will this update enable my 2x SuperDrive to write at a higher speed?

    This update enables you to read from and write to the new media, but it does not increase the speed of the drive.
  • As someone else said, this has been around for a long, long time. I tried to update my aftermarket DVR-A03 drive (basically the same thing as the original SuperDrive, but I bought it separately) but this utility wouldn't do it. I found one that did at Pioneer's website [pioneerelectronics.com]. Only drawback was that I had to reboot to OS 9 in order to apply it, but better than screwing up my drive by using newer media!

    Hmm, I wonder if that means you can't update an aftermarket drive in the latest PowerMacs, which supposedly d

    • ...chassis your drive into a windows box and flash it from there. I hear there of plenty of people still running windows.
      • CHASSIS is not a verb

        sorry, but it just isn't
        • "I EVOLVE... but I don't REVOLVE

          I suppose what you're saying is you don't want another Chris Evans on your hands...
        • chassis is easily a verb. Just like saddle up and reigned in....we 'trailered' the boat....he 'framed' his question...'coined' a phrase...'shot' her a glance... 'punked' out... she 'scabbed' her way into the dance. =========

          You need to spend more time out in the real world, and less time watching Jeopardy.
          • Then, according to your own example, wouldn't it be 'chassised'. (reign - reigned, trailer - trailered, frame - framed, etc).

            But the bigger question is: Why is it that when someone has taken the time to learn the english language, and has taken pride in doing so - they are always criticised? (and I know my spelling is not perfect - but you misspelled grammar...)
            If someone posted a script, or some perl code, or java code, or something along those lines - and it was incorrect, 1000 people would jump on t
    • It depends on the drive, but there are two parts to the Pioneer firmware: kernel & general

      What firmware updater you can apply depends upon what kernel your drive was most recently installed with. If you can get the kernel installer from Apple, you can make the drive look like an Apple-supplied unit and Apple's OS X firmware updaters will work for you. If not, you could always find a way to install the non-Apple firmware parts into Apple's firmware updater package, right?
  • This has been on apple's site for months and to think my post about the duke nukem source being made available as of yesterday got rejected.

  • OLD!!! (Score:4, Funny)

    by .@. ( 21735 ) on Wednesday April 02, 2003 @06:31PM (#5648639) Homepage
    Document Posted: 11-17-2002.

    News From Under Rocks. Stuff That's Moldy.

  • iPod (Score:1, Funny)

    by sexysasian ( 592552 )
    So, what does this have to do with the iPod?
  • ...this is yet more proof of the support that Apple gives for the products that bear its logo. I can still call up 1-800-SOS-APPL and get support for all my Legacy Macs, like my 8100/80, 8100/110, Quadra 610 and my various 604 PPC Macs.
  • Just made a punch over to apple's website

    How does one "make a punch" to a web site?

  • ...this is an old link that announces the update to correctly burn certain media. It's not new...it's not about getting a faster drive. It is rather stupid to assume otherwise just so you can have a story to post.
  • Whoever's making these Apple posts needs to actually read up on whatever the hell it is they're talking about before clicking the 'submit' button. Making us look bad, for crying out loud.

  • Old, and furthermore... (Score:4, Informative)

    by wirelessbuzzers ( 552513 ) on Thursday April 03, 2003 @02:37AM (#5651011)
    This update doesn't make you able to burn new media faster. It enables you to burn new media slower so that your drive doesn't catch on fire [slashdot.org].

    Just so you know.

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