New iMacs-no superdrive

[mikehalloran]

You can buy an external DVD drive/burner for $30-50 that would work fine with the new iMac...

Fine? Try much better. The internal Superdrive is a dog by comparison. An external CD/DVD should be usb, not firewire. If you have to boot from an emergency DVD, there are times when FW won't work.

I have a SATA burner in a FW800/FW400/usb/eSATA drive. There's not much speed difference among the four protocols for a burner (unlike a hard drive in the same enclosure). Compared to the internal optical, an external is a rocket sled. With Toast 11, one can burn to more than one drive at a time making it easy to test.

The FW to TB adapter works great with one caveat: It only puts out 7W - this means that most bus powered drives won't work without a powered FW hub in the middle (or external power supply for the device).

[mikehalloran]

Be warned. My wife was getting ready to pre-order one, and when we took a closer look at it we put on the brakes. She went with a 2011-style model, which, by the way, is getting hard to come by.

I wouldn't have gone to a 2011 for that as I and others have posted.

There are other reasons to go with it: The 2011 is the only iMac with TB and Firewire.

The 2011 can be fitted with an eSATA port mod from OWC - three times faster than FW800. You can use those $16 eSATA/usb docks sold by Micro Center and set the bare drive right in. When you have the need for speed... But, for a little more, you can get a dual eSATA to Thunderbolt adapter and run two external drives at eSATA speeds of 3G.

[mdee]

I can't even remember the last time I used the Superdrive. I rarely use DVD's anymore.
And moving away from FW doesn't bother me. But I really do have to question why Apple
would put the SD card reader on the back of the new iMac's.

[mikehalloran]

>But I really do have to question why Apple
would put the SD card reader on the back of the new iMac's.<

That's easy: With the new design, they can't put it on the side anymore.

Interestingly, they're hyping the new screen. There is no new screen. It's the old screen but they have changed the way they mount the glass so that the screen looks better. OK...

The 2010/11 still looks pretty good to me (we have one of each). Having said that, I would go for the new one if I were buying now. Some of the drive options look good. Not planning to sell the ones I have, though.