Ready to talk storage? Consider a rewriteable DVD-RW drive which can store 4.7GB on a single disc, or dual-layer drives, which can store 8.5GB! (And don’t even get me started on the latest generation of optical technology — the Blu-ray recorders — they can store 50GB on a single disc!)
At the time of this writing, adding an external Blu-ray recorder to your Macbook doesn’t always mean that you can watch Blu-ray movies, because the digital copyright protection on Blu-ray discs can block playback on many computer graphics cards. Check with the manufacturer of your external drive to see whether it can be used to watch Blu-ray movie discs on your Macbook. Of course, you can always use your Blu-ray drive for recording data discs and backups.
If you’d like to trade data with another Mac or a PC via floppy disks, you can get an external USB floppy drive for under $50; however, I personally eschew floppy disks, which are very unreliable and carry a mere 1.44MB of data. Pick up a USB Flash drive instead.
All recent Macbook models (except the Macbook Air) include a rewriteable DVD-RW SuperDrive — but if your computer is older and didn’t come equipped with a recorder (or you want the latest Blu-ray storage capacity), you can always add an external model.
What they cost
A USB DVD-RW drive averages about $100. What to look for
Get the following features in an external DVD recorder:
♦ An internal buffer of at least 8MB: The larger the buffer, the less chance that you’ll encounter recording errors and the faster your drive will burn.
♦ At least 16X DVD recording speed: A no-brainer here. The faster the recording speed, the less time you’ll wait for the finished disc.
♦ AC power through the USB 2.0 or FireWire cable: This eliminates the need for a separate AC power supply.
♦ Burn-proof technology: This virtually eliminates recording errors because of multitasking so that you can continue to work on other applications while you record.
