Mac: External HD and burner

[AtHomeBoy_2000]

I am buying a Mac about the middle of next month and I will be a first time Mac owner (the Apple IIe I had as a child doesn’t count!). I need advice on 2 accounts. I am going to buy the 1.8 G5 iMac with the combo drive. I felt it might just be safer to save the money on the upgrade to a 2.0 and put it into an external hard drive and external DVD burner. This is where I need help.

What type of HD and burner would you suggest? I hear Lacie makes great external HD. And I love their DVD burner with Lightscribe however I hear it is not fully compatible with iDVD which is I would prefer it do work with. What external burner would you suggest?

[DMBand0026]

Buy an internal hard drive and an external enclosure, than buy an internal DVD burner and an external enclosure, than build them yourself. You'll save quite a bit of money that way, especially if you're doing them both.

[GSpotter]

There's currently a thread (http://forums.applenova.com/showthread.php?t=9071) in the Third Party Forum which deals with the same questions.

For an external drive, I'd also suggest to build your own. It is just a few steps:

1. Buy enclosure and internal drive
2. Open enclosure
3. Put the HD inside
4. Connect data and power cable
5. Tighten 4 screws.
6. Close enclosure

So even for somebody without much technical skills, this is possible. It is no rocket science. ;)

When buying a burner, you should compare the included software. Typically, the ready made burners are bundled with some burning software like Roxio Toast. If you build your own external burner, you might have to buy it separately. IIRC, the Apple drivers sometimes do not like non-Apple / external burners... (BTW: Roxio just announced Toast 7.0)