External ripping drives for a Mac. Worth thinking about?

Hmmm, interesting. Does that mean one can't use an external drive with a Macbook fullstop or just not the SD?

Just SuperDrive. Have a look at other world computing. They have heaps of reasonably priced external drives, including kits to remove the optical drive and insert a SSD.

Get a Samsung ... The Apple SuperDrive is a misnomer: nothing super about it ... Should be called MediocreDrive .... the Samsung just works

nothing wrong with the internal drive ... I've ripped 3,000 CDs with mine and it still works and XLD says no errors 

Not really keen on replacing the optical drive with an SSD... but thanks.

Guido, do you have a MBP, which you used to rip your 3000 CDs? Maybe I should use mine then and not worry about it. I just wondered whether there are quality differences between drives that can have an effect on the accuracy of the rip and ultimately SQ. There are plenty of articles on the net suggesting that there are indeed differences between drives and that some are better than others in their ability to read out the audio data accurately. Same folks also suggest to use lower reading speeds for better results. I am bit puzzled by that view because I would have thought, if the ripping software is good and checks for the rip being accurate, the drive quality should be of lesser importance - as long as it works well of course, which I guess most do these days. I mean you can get a 100% accurate rip using XLD on a MBP, even with iTunes, so what's there to worry about? Nothing really, isn't it?

TIA

tp

I use xld and dont worry about speed. I've ripped hundreds of cd's on my mbp with no problems. If it does break i'm sure it can be replaced.

I did the bulk of my ripping with my old pc with three cd drives in it which sped up the process.

It is a macBook pro 1.2 from 2006 with a Matshita DVD-R UJ-846 drive .... I ripped a CD on it today using XLD and. XLD reported no errors. I did it again with iTunes (not normal practice, but as a test) then used XLD to extract the PCM from both and they were identical across every track. 

As we have noted many times there are many legends about magic ripping and there are things that iTunes misses, but these are not usually an issue. I use XLD because it gives me a nice report saying it has done a great job. My rips check out against AccurateRip so i get some sense that they are fine ... And whatever rip magic i try i get the same result anyway. 

Just to add i do not recommended Matshita drives as being particularly good ... Drives from Samsung, TEAC and Sony are much better made .... but nonetheless my rips seem fine. 

If you are in any way concerned about the quality of your optical drive then my advice would be £45 for a Samsung drive ... We use them at work and i've no idea how their repair process works because i have never known one fail. 

My 4yo MBP CD drive died a year or so ago. Not bothered as I don't use it anyway. But yes, the drives have a finite life.

Good points. And interesting comparison between XLD rips and iTunes' own. Mine is a 2010 MBP, so should be equally good, if not better. I think I will just continue with the MBP and should the drive fail one day, I'll just get it replaced...

Thanks

tp

Guy, what format do you rip to?