I would like to be able to rip some of my CD collection so I can have access to the music through my NAS and Naim streamer. I have both a PC and a Mac but I would prefer to do the ripping on my Mac.
Does anyone have a recommendation for a decent external CD drive or a drive mechanism that I could install into an enclosure?
I’ve used an Apple SuperDrive for years but, only yesterday, discovered it won’t work with an M2 MacBook Air, even with an Apple USB A/C connector. Not enough power, I think.
I use an Apple Superdrive attached to an iMac that downloads most CDs, have had a few problems on a couple of CDs so purchased a cheap drive off Amazon (Rioddas), made no difference - still unable to download those CDs - even repurchased them to no avail.
I just recently bought a cheap ~£20 external CD drive from Amazon for exactly the same purpose (Rioddas External CD/Dvd +/-Rw Drive, USB 3.0 Portable, Slim Dvd/CD Rom Rewriter Burner For Windows XP / 2003 / Vista / 7/8.1/10 / 10.1, Linux, MacOS system, MacBook Air and Mac mini). It has two USB cables. One to plug into my PC (USB 3 connection) and another to plug into a USB power supply - I used one I had from a Samsung phone (it doesn’t come with one). My thinking was that I could ensure it had sufficient power by plugging in both cables.
Would I recommend it? It was so so, like any of these unknown brands I suspect, and it failed to read several CDs that an old laptop I had read fine (I used dBpoweramp). That said, out of ~150 CDs I had about 6 that failed to rip bit perfect, a couple of which weren’t recognised and just spun up. I guess there are a myriad of reasons why.
I use an Asus external dvd drive with my Mac, works fine.
Here’s a link to a similar thread - I had the same question,
Wasn’t aware that the Mac SD doesn’t work w M2 Macs…
Another of my issues as well…
Still not able to fix those CDs
I’m tempted - can you confirm it’s a slot-loader, like a car CD player, and that it works fine with a Windows PC?
Yes, it’s a slot loader. The blurb says Windows so it should be fine. We use it with a Mac.
The superdrive is really slow or at least the one that I have is
The Asus external blu-ray is much quicker, however I’ve had a few CDs that I’ve had to rip with my superdrive.
Thanks so much everyone for your recommendations. I actually ran across the Acer Blu-Ray drive somewhat independently and it seems like a good solution albeit more expensive. In the past I had a couple of drives in the smaller portable format like the superdrive which didn’t last that long before the slot mechanism failed. That was a long time ago so I suspect overall reliability has improved.
I expect the SuperDrive works perfectly with M2 Macs. It was the MacBook Air that the problem was with (not enough power).
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