Hi folks,

I have a Pioneer DVR-104 Superdrive in my dual 1Ghz Quicksilver G4. My Mac fix-it guru recently commented that he thought my drive might be ailing considering how slowly it loaded media. I'm thinking about replacing it; any suggestions on which newer version is worthwhile, and where to get it?

I don't know if the Mac has any restrictions on what you can put in it. Go for a dual format -RW/+RW Pioneer A07. They're about $150. A dual format A06 goes for about $100. A single format DVD-RW A05 can be found for about $50.

The other issue is what types of media are slow? Even
the Pioneer lists meager read speeds for DVD-R and ROM:

Pioneer A07
DVD-ROM (Single layer) Max 12x CAV
DVD-ROM (Dual layer) Max 8x CAV
DVD-R,DVD-RW Max 8x CAV
DVD+R,DVD+RW Max 8x CAV

CD-ROM Max 40x CAV
CD-R,CD-RW Max 32x CAV

I don't see audio mode listings for CD on the spec sheet.

the drive should not "load" CDs/DVDs any slower, ever. if you experience a slow-down, that is probably due to yer system, not the drive.

now, if you have problems burning CDs/DVDs, then yer drive may be ill.

if the CD/DVD loads slowly, it's probably due to the fact that you were already running some other app that had previously sucked a lot of yer RAM and you hadn't cleared yer caches (or you don't have maxed out RAM) and you didn't have enough available, so the system decided to write the info to the HD instead. (which takes longer).

i wouldn't be buying a new drive, but RAM instead.

my $0.02

>the drive should not "load" CDs/DVDs any slower, ever

Lasers do burn out. If there are a lot of errors due to laser burn out or some drive problem, each disk read may take several tries,
resulting in a major performance drop.
My original CD-RW drive from 1998 exhibited a similar slowdown before it died earlier this year. Disks reads would take a long time and sometimes Windows would lock up.

I have the ao6 and it works fine.

I've heard that there may be a concern regarding the ao7 but I don't recall what it was.

I purchased the A07 for my dual G4 and it would give errors when the time came to write the lead in and out tracks on a DVD+R disc. The drive itself would report errors ("drive error" and whatnot... can't remember the exact verbage). It wrote the data itself just fine with zero problems, but the discs ended up being useless since there was no TOC. It worked fine with CD-R's and from what I hear it works well with DVD-R's

You could check out americal.com, which sells both bulk media and burners. Their site features compatibility info and makes the latest firmware upgrades available for download. There are similar web retailers out there, but I can't recall their names at the moment.