Confirmed: MacBook Air Superdrive Does Not work with other Macs

I actually own a Macbook Air with the SuperDrive and I have done some testing.

First, when I open System Profiler and look at the SuperDrive it states that Power Draw is only 500mA, that of a single standard USB Port. This however could be that even OSX does not understand what Apple did on the Air.

Next, I searched Fry's electronics for a cable that would allow me to use 2 USB Ports to power the SuperDrive (Keep in mind the drive has its own usb cable, not a mini-usb plug). I found what I was looking for in a CoolMax HD-211 2.5" IDE drive enclosure ($15). I then needed a Female to Female USB Adapter, which they also had for $4. I wired this up to a Belkin Powered USB Hub and connected it to my Macbook Pro (in both Mac OS and Windows XP via Bootcamp). No Go. I also tried it without the hub on the same system (both OS's). I tried the same cable system on a 2.5" drive that normally that will not power up on a single USB port and it worked fine. I also tried both configurations on the Macbook Air (via the hub). Still no go. I even attempted putting the disc in the drive first while connected directly to the air (in the case that the eject mechanism requires more power than normal spin-up.

What use would I have for this drive on another system you ask? Plenty. When I do heavy burning on my Macbook Pro I prefer to alternate drives to keep them from overheating.

It is my belief from my testing that Apple Firmware locked this drive to keep it from working on any other system. The only reason for this that I can think of is to keep market demand down, making sure that owners of Macbook Air's will be able to get the drive. Maybe as time goes on and demand goes down apple will release a firmware upgrade allowing any system to use the drive (and maybe a cable for systems that cannot provide enough power).

Ah, if you have a 17-inch MacBook Pro, try using the USB port closest to the MagSafe port.

I've noticed with USB external drives that the particular port provides more power than the other two.

Might as well give that a try.

There are some strange, ill-informed comments here. People think Apple is being evil? The simple answer is this - they wanted a slim device that didn't need a power adaptor, specifically to sell with the MBA. The solution - make the MBA's USB port powerful enough to run it. It's that simple. Show me any other external DVD burner that runs off a standard USB port with no power brick.

If people want a DVD burner that works on MBAs as well as any any mac, or PC for that matter, there are hundreds on the market (with power bricks, of course)

Why are so many people so quick to jump all over Apple and look for sinister motives in nearly every product they release, when there's a perfectly rational explanation? I suppose that isn't as fun, though...

Why does it seem people get angry over something they don't understand? No hub or firmware upgrade will make it work on other USB ports.

USB standards don't call for that sort of power, therefore Apple had to mod it to work on the computer side to avoid having people carry around another power adapter. If it was firewire, we wouldn't be having this discussion but since most of the computer/pc industry likes USB, they had to choose the one that had more things you could plug into it.

*If you need 2 usb ports to power just a 2.5" external drive, how do you expect to power a laser and burn to discs spinning at 50x without modifications?*

Even powered hubs don't go against the USB standards so plugging into a powered hub means nothing except that all 4 devices will have the 5V that they may ask for instead of bogging down the 1x5volt feed from the computer.

Why not allow it to work with any system? You'll sell a lot more of them. I love Apple most of the time, but this is just plain silly.

Okay, so, what about the MacBook Air's Ethernet adapter? Any problems with that?

I can see two future 3rd party products. The first is a USB hub that has MBA Superdrive support for other macs and the other is a port replicator that has a triple connector for the 3 MBA ports, with 4 USB ports a DVI port, an ethernet port and a audio in/out port.

You then plug your magsafe connector into this and run a cable round the back of the MBA to the proper power port thus powering both the MBA and the hub/docking station from the MBA power brick.

I'm sure a smart engineer could make this work.

Alright guys, time for a little calculation.
Standard USB uses 5V and draws current of 0.5A, so with P=U*I this makes 2.5 W of Power. Since common DVD-Drives need around 3.5 W in standby and at least 7 W to burn, I would be very surprised if the MBA-Superdrive would work on any other Mac.

Which iMac did you test it on? The aluminum or white? Did you try it in all three ports? If it is the aluminum, did you try the ports on the new slim keyboard?

Did you try it on a Mac Pro?

This reminds me of my iSub...The system sees it but Apple says too bad...

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