Mac question for the Mac nuts out there.

[bubba]

Ok, chick at my work as an old G4 mac (one that looks like a desk lamp) low end 700MHz model. Well it only has a CD drive in it, and she wants to have DVD playback ability in it.

Question then is what would one recommend for an external drive? Can you use any old external or do you have to buy one that is specific to mac's. Think its running OS9.

[martini161]

well, considering its a mac and she's already been sucked into apple to be milked for way to much money for the rest of her life, so shes probably going to have to buy one of those "Super drives" mac has. wow its amazing how alot people now adays who have enough money to buy a mac are computer illiterate enough to be fooled by a name like "Super Drive!"

[bubba]

That what I was thinking, but she was hoping to find a ~$30 external reader so she can set the old iMac up for her kid to watch movies on.

[martini161]

hmm, you may be able to find a legacy one on ebay, other than that, its probably a hit or miss things with macs

[XstollieX]

any firewire or usb drive will work. My mac laptop only has a combo drive so i use a sony external with firewire.
she will get more performance from a fire wire drive. has a faster transfer rate than usb 1.1

[martini161]

if any drive will work, try picking up these, cheaper than the premade external drives cause there all dvd burners and she just wants a drive right?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6827136125
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817186103

[bubba]

Drive in an external cage, I never done anything with a mac before so I wasn't sure how picky it is with peripherals

[martini161]

those two are the cheapest drive and the cheapest cage on the egg, so if they dont work at least you didnt waste much money

[XstollieX]

my brother in-laws imac wasn't to picky. I rebuilt his g3 imac off of my firewire drive and it worked fine. The imac only had a cd-rom in it, and tiger was on dvd