The MaUse DoubleClick for February 2015

OWC Slim Portable Optical Drive for CD, DVD and BD read/write Apple is at the forefront of technology. Often, they are dictating the direction that this technology will take. One of the latest changes they have adopted is to remove the internal burner/player for discs. This will certainly be the death knell for CDs and DVDs. They will fall by the way side just as the floppy discs have disappeared. I can understand this move as the drive does take up space and the newest computers certainly are very thin. Also, most software is now added in wirelessly and saving data is more easily accomplished with thumb drives. But I still see a need for an optical drive. The Apple Store itself lists the 'Apple USB SuperDrive' as an accessory to their computers. It costs $89.00. The need is still there and, as such, I went looking for a more reasonably priced substitute. OWC has a very comprehensive line of external optical drives that one can choose from. Go to eshop.macsales.com and look up what they have that will work for you. I will be reviewing the OWC Slim 6X Portable USB 2.0 Blu-ray Burner (OWC SKU: OWCMRSSBDR6X). The OWC Slim is a multi-purpose disc reader/ burner. It will read and write all three of the current discs available, those being CD, DVD and Blu-ray Discs (BD). Put any one of these discs into the drive and the disc icon will immediately appear on your desktop. If it is a blank disc, I have a pop-up window open asking me what to do with this blank disc. The way your OS handles a disc is controlled through the CDs & DVDs button in the System Preferences. I have my audio CDs open in iTunes and load whatever songs are on them, ready to play. iTunes can also be used to burn songs to a

CD. If the CD contains photos, it triggers iPhoto to open. A video DVD starts up the DVD Player application. You may notice that there is no instruction as to how the computer is to handle a video Blu-ray Disc. That is because Apple decided a while back to not support this technology. It is kind of like VHS and Beta tapes (if you are old enough to remember that debate). Apple decided to stay clear of Blu-ray discs and as such their hardware and software does not handle this format. That does not mean that you can't use BD on your computer. To view a Blu-ray movie, you will need an external optical drive to read the data on the disc, just like the OWC Slim, and you will need some third-party software, like the Macgo Blu-ray Player that I have reviewed in this same DoubleClick, to interpret the data and play the movie. That $89 Apple USB SuperDrive will not play your Blu-ray movie. It won't even mount the disc onto your desktop. To burn discs, I use Toast which comes with the ability to burn the most common types of these discs. There are five types, each with a different amount of disc storage. The CD holds about 0.7 GB which makes it best suited for audio and small files. There are two DVD types, the normal which holds about 4.7 GB and the Dual Layer (DVD DL) which is about 8.5 GB. Blu-ray also comes in normal and Dual Layer with 25 GB and 50 GB of available storage space. It is this large capacity which makes it best suited for those feature length movies which require a lot of digital information to produce the clear, crisp pictures and that wonderful surround sound. The OWC Slim will burn the discs at different speeds depending on how much has to be encoded onto the disc. It has up to 6X for a Bluray burn, 8X for a DVD burn and 24X CD burn

The MaUse DoubleClick for February 2015

The MaUse DoubleClick for February 2015 speeds. I was able to test the burn speed of the drive with both CD and DVD discs. I found the drive quick and reasonably quiet while burning. Some drives I have used in the past were very noisy, emitting high pitched sounds during the burn. I could not use Blu-ray because blank ones are hard to find (thanks Apple). They are available online for about $1 a disc which is considerably more than CD or DVD discs. I don't foresee myself using this drive to burn BD but I will be using it to play Blu-ray movies. You are not limited to using only Toast to burn discs as iTunes or iDVD and other third party apps will do just as well. The OWC drive is very slim and portable. Its actual size is 14.25 x 14.5 x 2.4 cm, with a weight of only 122 g. The Apple drive is slightly smaller and thinner but more than twice the weight. The Slim is bus powered which means it gets its electrical power directly from the USB cable. It comes with a "Y" type dual USB 2.0 A to 5 pin Mini B cable. If plugging it into one USB port is not enough juice then you use the second USB attachment to power it up. I have not found any need to use the second USB attachment. If this is a concern for you, you can always purchase the OWC Mercury On-TheGo Power Adapter for about $10. There is a port in the drive to plug the power cable into. It is slot loading rather than the suction design of the Apple's drive. Push the button on the front and the drive partially opens. Pull it out the rest of the way, snap your disc into the slot and gently push the door back until it locks into place. I am used to the button opening and closing the disc holder. The Slim is not designed this way. To make it as thin as possible, the open button is right on the door, not beside or under it. You can't push the button and have the door close automatically.

up to optical media is still a popular way to go for photos, audio files and video. This drive perpetuates the use of these mediums. Read more about this particular drive by going to eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MRSSBDR6X. It sells for about $80, which is less than the Apple SuperDrive. I have already borrowed some Blu-ray movies from the Library and watched them on my TV using Apple TV to link my iMac to my TV. This drive is all I hoped for and more. I am getting a lot more use out of it than I thought, mainly due to the BD ability. It provides decent performance at a low price. OWC ships very quickly, as anyone who has ordered anything from them will attest to. Their support staff will be able to answer any of your questions with very little delay. Now I am enjoying the ability to use discs that I did not have before. With a bit of research I have found a better option than the Apple USB Super Drive, and its cheaper. Increase the functionality of your Mac and get the OWC Slim. Don't find yourself unable to access data stored on discs nor be unable to save stuff to discs.



Submitted by Marcel Dufresne

The OWC Slim Optical Drive makes CD and DVD creation easy. The USB 2.0 interface is backward compatible and will work on Mac and PC computers. The lightweight design provides portable convenience. It supports the reading and burning of CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray Discs. Even though commercial Blu-ray movie playback is not supported in the Mac OS, Blu-ray discs do mount on the desktop and can be backed up to the computer or played via third party software. Backing The MaUse DoubleClick for February 2015