MCE Technologies LLC on Monday announced an 8x DVD-R internal optical drive upgrade for Apple iBook G3 laptops. The slot-loading drive replaces the internal tray-loading drives found in Apple’s older, white-clad iBook systems, and works with both 12-inch and 14-inch screen-equipped models. The US$199 drive is available for installation by MCE and MCE-authorized service centers.
The drive can burn DVD-R and DVD+R media at up to 8x speed, and can also burn DVD-RW and DVD+RW media at 4x speed. It can burn dual-layer DVD+R media at 2.4x speed, and burns CD-Rs and CD-RWs at up to 24x. It’s a bootable drive and is compatible with Apple’s iTunes, Finder burning, iPhoto and DVD Player. The drive is natively compatible with Mac OS X v10.3.6 or later; MCE provides drivers to make the drive work with Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X v10.2.x.