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creating Blu-ray discs choosing writer
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[Mark Palmos] “Hello Walter
Did you use the supplied SATA cable?
Where did you plug it in – to the slot under the fan carriage or in an empty drive bay?”
In the Empty 2nd Optical Slot of my Mac Pro. I’m don’t think I used a supplied cable, just what was in the computer.
[Mark Palmos] “did you remove the piece of plastic from behind the aluminium “gate” which slides up when you eject the drive. Fastmac say this needs to be done too.”
Not the aluminum gate on the Mac Pro, you need to snap off the front of the actual drive tray on the burner. The Mac Pro has a narrower opening that the older G5’s so you just snap that off the front and it will open in a Mac Pro.
It’s just an extra front to the drive that’s no necessary and it just has the “BluRay” “DVD” logos on it.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR
The new Color Training DVD now available from the Creative Cow! -
[walter biscardi] “Not the aluminum gate on the Mac Pro, you need to snap off the front of the actual drive tray on the burner. The Mac Pro has a narrower opening that the older G5’s so you just snap that off the front and it will open in a Mac Pro.”
Walter, your FastMac was 95% installed before you even bought the drive, it seems. MacPro does not come with the SATA cable pre-installed!
What takes the better part of an hour for an adept person is to take apart the computer and put in the damned SATA cable.
You have to remove all memory, the memory case, the sheeth between memory case and fan assembly, then the fan assembly (very difficult to move) then put in the cable, then try find a way to get it from there to the drive, then find the provided cable is TOO HIGH for the fan assembly to go back again, and then put it all back together again.
Unfortunately mine did not work at all, it makes grunting sounds and does not work in my PC either, so I have returned it for a refund, I will buy an external burner, deal with the slower 2x speed but gain added versatility for laptop, pc etc…
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Häakon,
most of what you said is true, but some is not, like you do not have to remove the processor heat sink. FastMac give you a molex to sata power converter cable. But everything else, yes you have to do that and its a PITA… but thats not becasue of FastMac, its because of very poor MacPro design.
Why was your post removed?
Cheers,
Mark. -
“What takes the better part of an hour for an adept person is to take apart the computer and put in the damned SATA cable.”
I didn’t have to do that.
[Mark Palmos] ”
You have to remove all memory, the memory case, the sheeth between memory case and fan assembly, then the fan assembly (very difficult to move) then put in the cable, then try find a way to get it from there to the drive, then find the provided cable is TOO HIGH for the fan assembly to go back again, and then put it all back together again.”
I think I had to remove the front fan assembly but that slides right out. The unit plugged right in to the available cable that was in the 2nd optical slot.Took all of 10 minutes. I’m not really sure how you’re trying to do this, or if the 8 core machines are different, but for our Mac Pro Quad 3.0 it took this less than adept person 10 minutes to open and install the drive. 5 minutes later we were doing our first test burn on blu ray.[Mark Palmos]
[Mark Palmos] “so I have returned it for a refund, I will buy an external burner, deal with the slower 2x speed but gain added versatility for laptop, pc etc…”
Sounds like the best decision in your case. At least all the other folks I’ve heard from who purchased the unit on my recommendation have had sastisfactory installations.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR
The new Color Training DVD now available from the Creative Cow! -
Hi Walt,
FastMac have been working on a PDF file which they sent me, with full instructions. In the instructions they recommend getting an expert to do it, ie to NOT remove the fan assembly yourself. I followed their instructions which were to remove memory, memory case, processor cover, fan assembly, then plug in the sata cable and put it all back.Im not sure how/if the 8 core MacPro is any different, i doubt it, but anyway, as per their instructions, it is not a task for anyone… and I would agree. I could post the pdf but since it is their work-in-progress, if you would like, just for interest’s sake, I could email you directly.
I spent some time on the train writing some of the details I found missing from their PDF, how to pull out the processor cover, fan assembly and where to route the sata cable. ah well, I will probably buy an internal again when the speed goes up to 8x or so…
till later, have a good weekend
Mark. -
[mark palmos] “FastMac have been working on a PDF file which they sent me, with full instructions. In the instructions they recommend getting an expert to do it, ie to NOT remove the fan assembly yourself. I followed their instructions which were to remove memory, memory case, processor cover, fan assembly, then plug in the sata cable and put it all back.”
Sounds like we have two completely different units or something is wrong somewhere. None of those instructions are what we had to do with our BluRay burner from FastMac. It was almost as simple as installing a SATA drive.
I also have not heard from anyone else who had those same issues who purchased the unit on my recommendation. I think the external unit is your best bet for your situation.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR
The new Color Training DVD now available from the Creative Cow! -
I am chiming in a bit late here but there are options for external eSata as well. I have a first-gen dual four-core (total 8 cores) 3.0 GHz system and I use a Sonnet Tempo eSata card to provide 4 external eSata ports. I have two RDI arays on two of the ports right now (one mirror for backup and one striped array for speed) and they work fine So if you use one of those cards, you should be able to plug in a Sata External drive and have better throughput than with an internal IDE and not have to give up a drive bay connection.
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