Formac’s drives come in a unique-looking molded chassis. Both the CD-RW drives and the DVD-RAM drive support bus power, as well, negating the need for an external power supply (support for this feature is dependent on specific Mac models — for others, Formac sells an optional external power supply).
The CD-RW drives also feature “BurnProof” technology, which reduces the likelihood that they’ll produce “coasters” — useless CD-Rs that were mastered wrong because of buffer underrun errors. The CD-RW drives ship with version 4.1.2 of Adaptec/Roxio’s Toast CD mastering software for the Macintosh.
The DVD-RAM drive, meanwhile, can store up to 9.4GB on a single double-sided disc (4.7GB on a single-sided disc). The drive can read a variety of formats, including DVD-ROM, DVD-R, CD-ROM XA, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-Video (on Macs with built-in DVD-ROM drives), CD-DA, Video CD, CD-Extra, and Photo CD. The drive can also read and write to DVD-RAM media, of course. It ships with Formac ProDisc mastering software.
Formac also notes the pending release of a new CD-RW drive mechanism that will be able to burn CD-Rs at up to 24x speed. The company says the new drive will be released by mid-June.