Mac peripheral maker MCE Technologies LLC announced Wednesday its Lucid M2X Portable FireWire DVD-MULTI Drive. It’s an external, bus-powered optical drive that can write to CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW and DVD-RAM discs.
The slot-loading drive can write to single-sided or double-sized DVD-RAM media at up to 2x speed, DVD-R media at up to 2x speed, and DVD-RW media at up to 1x speed. It also writes CD-Rs at up to 16x speed and CD-RWs at up to 8x speed. The drive reads DVD-ROM discs at up to 8x speed and CD-ROMs at up to 24x speed.
The drive weighs less than a pound, and is compatible with Macs and PCs that include a FireWire port. It ships with a double-sided DVD-RAM disc (good for up to 9.4GB). Unlike other writeable optical media, DVD-RAM discs can be written to dynamically, acting as a “virtual hard disk,” according to MCE.
The drive is supported by Mac OS X’s drivers and is also compatible with Dantz’s Retrospect backup software, Apple’s iTunes, the Finder’s Disc Burner, and DVD Player. It also ships with ImageMixer — a DVD authoring software package for Mac OS X and Mac OS 9. Roxio’s Toast Lite software is also included.
The new Lucid M2X Portable FireWire DVD-MULTI drive ships Thursday with a suggested retail price of US$389.