02-02-15: Ctsooner
I can't wait to Steve's DAC up and running in my system, I could use the built in super drive but have been told that a remote usb drive is best as you can buy a much better quality one. Plexor was the name Steve game me, but when I went to their site, they seem to only be for window's systems.
CTsooner, in my experience with external optical drives (which as a disclaimer I'll mention is limited to Windows and Linux operating systems, and to non-audio applications), you would get much better reliability and consistency of performance across diverse media, as well as greater speed if you choose to use it, if instead of purchasing an external USB optical drive as such you were to purchase a standard size internal drive intended for desktop computers, and mount it in a **good quality** powered external enclosure which provides a SATA interface internally and a USB interface externally.
I note that the one optical drive Plextor currently offers is that kind of internal drive. Having essentially no Mac experience I can't say this for sure, but my suspicion is that even though it is described as being for Windows operating systems it would work fine with a 2009 Mac Mini when interfaced via USB through an external enclosure.
You can find suitable external enclosures at Newegg.com, which is my "go to" place for computer parts and accessories.
Here is one such enclosure that looks promising, although I have no experience with this or other currently listed models. If you click on the "see questions and answers" link to the right of and slightly below the photos, you'll find a couple of people mentioning that they are using it successfully with Mac Minis.
Newegg also sells the Plextor drive, btw, for
$30 in OEM form or
$37 in full retail form. I presume the OEM version comes without box, manual, and mounting screws, although mounting screws are supplied with external enclosures in some cases, apparently including the one I linked to.
Regards,
-- Al
