Great!
I was using some cheap black plastic external drives, which, honestly, weren't bad. I had this problem where after enough time, my Mac (24" iMac, and later a 2014 Mac Mini) wouldn't recognize it unless I restarted. That was the only problem.
So, after a lot of years of these two cheap drives working well (I would use one for a while and for some reason or another switch to the other, but they both had the same performance) and ripping literally thousands of CD's into my iTunes library, I decided to get this Genuine Apple USB drive, thinking that the problem of lost recognition would disappear. But that problem is still a problem, unfortunately. If it happens with a genuine Apple product, then there is no solution for this.
However, there are still some upsides to this. The Genuine Apple USB SuperDrive only requires one USB port, whereas my two previous cheap drives required two. They also had tray loading, and this Apple drive does not, which turns out to be easier and requires less room, or at least seems to take less room. It also feels and looks solid, no hint of cheapness like my previous drives, and it matches my aluminum Mac Mini and my two 30" aluminum Cinema Displays. On the first day I plugged it in, and it just worked.
So, although it didn't solve my issue, it still brought a number of improvements to tasks that I work on continually, which is ripping CD's to my iTunes. For the consistent look to my computing setup alone, it is worth the money in that while there's really nothing wrong with black plastic, plastic looks cheap compared to aluminum. And both of my previous drives were from different companies, so one has rounded edges and a non-flat top while the other is more boxy... now I have a clean, consistent look. The lack of a tray has turned out to be a great thing and I now have an additional USB port.
I picked this up for a third of the original cost of a new drive, and now I have two reliable backups although if something happens to this Apple drive, I'm definitely going to be purchasing a new one just like it.Read full review
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
