“Adding optical drives to Macs – what’s the answer?”
First of all, great references for performing many upgrades to Macs of all varieties can be found at www.xlr8yourmac.com and www.lowendmac.com.
Depending on the version of your Mac, there are varied solutions. For instance, there’s plenty of room for adding internal hard drives, but adding a second optical drive to a B/W G3 or a G4 isn’t as easy as it would seem. Internally there’s not a physical place for it with the Zip-sized mounting bracket underneath the stock optical drive. Even having a PCI IDE adapter card can’t help remedy this aspect.
Because IDE drives are generally less expensive than SCSI, they are a preferable option for many consumers, although in this case you may consider getting the Adaptec 2906 or 2940 PCI SCSI adapter card (or a FireWire to SCSI converter – about $100) and getting an external SCSI CD-RW (although about half of the original B/W G3s had internal SCSI busses standard which makes getting an additional PCI card an unnecessary measure).
But if you already have, or are planning on getting another IDE optical drive, one solution would be to purchase a FireWire enclosure [around $140] for an IDE drive. This will allow you to keep your internal IDE bus uncluttered (although since you can’t fit another internal optical drive in the B/W G3 or the G4, the point is moot). Remember, put ALL IDE drives on their own bus for optimum performance, if you can.
FireWire enclosures, as with all FireWire drives currently available, convert the drive’s native bus protocol to FireWire internally (that is to say: there’s no such a thing as a true FireWire drive at this time), and connect to your computer’s FireWire port externally. I must note that this has proven to be operationally a more successful method for systems with built-in FireWire ports [B/W G3, all G4s, iMac DV, iBook, iBook SE] rather than those that use PCI FireWire cards. This doesn’t mean that it won’t work, but it may require more tweaking.
Anything older than a 9600 (upgraded to a G3 or G4 without question, if you’re trying to use for audio) would be best served using the stock SCSI bus, and an external SCSI CD-R/W. PCI IDE adapter cards can be found that work with the older Beige PPCs, but they tend to prefer the use of their familiar SCSI busses. Nevertheless, this author has firsthand experience (and success) with a G3-upgraded PPC 7500, using a PCI IDE adapter card, an internal ATAPI CD-R/W, and an internal ATA hard drive. Buy LOTS of RAM!
That goes for all of you.