Filed under: MacBook Air
Confirmed: MacBook Air Superdrive Does Not work with other Macs
Today was a great day for me personally as my MacBook Air arrived from Apple and I've begun to put it through its paces (expect a full review very soon.). In addition to the MacBook Air, my MacBook Air external USB Superdrive also arrived today as well.Naturally, being the curious sort I am, before I even plugged the Superdrive into the MBA, I decided to see if it would, in fact, work while attached to any of my other Macs. So, I attached it and gave it a try. I won't keep you in suspense, it didn't work. While the Superdrive was recognized in system profiler by name, when plugged into both my 24" iMac and my 15" MacBook Pro, the drive did not work.
In fact, it didn't even seem like it was getting any power at all and made no sound. It was only when finally plugged into the MBA's sole USB port did the drive come to life. After that, it worked flawlessly when attached to the MBA, as you would expect it to. So, if you were planning on using the MBA Superdrive on any other Mac, you're out of luck.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Holly said 10:10PM on 2-04-2008
The issue wasn't the "MacBook Air External USB SuperDrive" [though that is a lot of wording for such an itty-bitty box]. The issue was the "also arrived today as well." "Also... as well" is redundant.
Josh said 6:33PM on 2-04-2008
Err... hasn't this been confirmed by every gadget blog known to man already?
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mingistech said 6:41PM on 2-04-2008
yes... this was confirmed 10 mins after the MWSF Stevenote.
moo083 said 6:43PM on 2-04-2008
I'm curious. Can you try to plug the drive into the iMac again? only this time run it through one of those USB cables that has two USB plugs on it, one for power and one for data? Maybe that will give it what it needs.
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byaah said 9:35PM on 2-04-2008
I think I read somewhere that it needs more power than what a powered hub will require, so thats also a no-go. Apple already thought it through and left us non-MBA users with no such luck.
FL said 10:25PM on 2-04-2008
I think it's possible. The MBA SuperDrive requires higher current than what the standard port can provide. Since there are other portable drives that draw current from two separate USB ports using a Y cable, the same technique could work here also. Now we just have to see if any third party comes up with such a product for the MBA SuperDrive.
Another potential solution is an adapter with one USB in (from the SuperDrive), one DC in (from a power adapter) and one USB out (to your computer). Whether people'd buy a product like this is another matter.
gws said 7:08PM on 2-04-2008
Anybody tried it through a powered hub?
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Raghu said 7:26PM on 2-04-2008
And also an unpowered hub on the MBA too. It would be nice to know if I can hang all my USB toys off my hub and just plug in the one cable.
RDF-Breaker said 7:26PM on 2-04-2008
Don't you Mac people ever read up on your own products. Your beloved iGod disobeyed UNIVERSAL standards and made the Air superdrive require more power than any other standard USB2.0 port hence why it wont work with any other device besides the MBA which also is the only computer in existence to require a high-power USB port. Congrats
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Raghu said 7:30PM on 2-04-2008
@RDF-Breaker
Show me one document that proves beyond doubt that the USB port is higher powered. Right now that is the common speculation and that is why most intelligent people here are trying to have a conversation and find out what the real deal is.
BTW if you hate Macs so much why are you trolling a site dedicated to Apple's products?
Tony C said 7:37PM on 2-04-2008
RDF-Breaker: Apparently you don't get around much. A lot of portable USB 2.5" external hard drives that operate without an external power brick or integrated power supply require the use of two USB ports (sometimes even on separate buses) for the additional power draw. Are you saying that all those little items are non-universal USB devices as well?
Move along troll, move along.
Luigi193 said 11:24PM on 2-04-2008
You sound like your eight.
lol said 11:57PM on 2-04-2008
the usb is overpowered so that you do not have to plug your external cd drive into the wall
adam said 7:29PM on 2-04-2008
Does the MBA superdrive have extra USB ports that allow it to act as hub? If not, Apple should really have built the superdrive to work as a USB hub as well as an external drive.
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ChillyWilly said 8:56PM on 2-04-2008
Now this would have been a good idea. Adding at least a passthrough port on back of the MBA Superdrive. Novel concept and actually would have been both practical and elegant. And not needing to carry around an extra item like a USB hub (even though some are pretty small).
Yazdgerd said 7:29PM on 2-04-2008
I foresee some upcoming patches:
"MBA_SuperDrive_Universal_enabler.torrent"
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John said 7:33PM on 2-04-2008
Wow, Apple is getting a little to greedy now...
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Simon Arch said 7:49PM on 2-04-2008
"Getting"?
athos said 7:34PM on 2-04-2008
If it doesn't work through a powered hub, then obviously that implies that you can't use the SuperDrive at the same time as any other USB devices...
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Joe said 4:20PM on 2-05-2008
I was thinking the same thing. Only time will tell if people can see past this shortcoming (much like when they switched to all USB and abandoned the floppy), but this laptop seems to have sacrificed too much.