Why does the superdrive seem to have such a high failure rate?

It seems most of the people I know who do a lot of burning and use of their superdrive's on the macbook pros are buying external optical drives because the internal optical drive in the mac is failing (not responsive or working anymore).

I'm just wondering, for expensive as Macs are, why is it that this is happening? I thought with the price one could expect high quality parts and not parts that fail within the first two years of owning the laptop.

 

I haven't really heard of the high failure rate you're talking about here. I have heard of a couple here and there, but not a widespread issue.

 

havent heard of any of the superdrives failing in the MBP

 

Either
1)You have unlucky friends since this is not a widespread issue and I have been looking on setup pics on macrumors and almost no one has external rom in like 9 threads
2)You are bored and decided to troll which is indicated by this

looks like typical Mac trolling 101 to me...sorry if I am wrong...

 

Actually he isn't all wrong it was discussed on the Apple forums. Not all the MBP super drives, just one in paticular. The Mata UJ-868. Mine would scratch my CD/DVD when it was read, this also happened to another UMBP owner that I work with. Apple was super quick about fixing it though. Apple care is still the best Customer service I have ever had with a notebook.

 

I have the Mata UJ-868 and it's been fine for me. No scratching, and none of the problems mentioned.

 

Yup my repalcement was the same drive and this one has been fine.

 

but it was happening from day 1,right?And I guess OP takes about different "issue"

 

Hmm, mine is the UJ-867A. Should I consider myself lucky?

 

check you CD's first

 

lol..
This is what was happening to mine.

 

Ouch... I'd get that thing checked out! That's definitely not normal, and it doesn't happen to any of my disks, with the same drive.

 

Mine just couldn't read DVD anymore one day, just ejecting them. After an evening spent on the net I found out I had to try a CD cleaner. And it resolved the problem in no time. To try before going to an apple store

Edit: not for this scratched-CD problem though!

 

My CD's are fine, thankfully.

 

Never once had an issue with any of my optical drives. I have a Macbook Air drive,iMac 15", iMac 24", PowerMac G5, 17" Powerbook and iBook.

 

That was before it was replaced. All is good now. I have seen my issue on 2 drives so far.

Although I think the actual problem came from moving the Notebook while it was reading the DVD/CD drive, and lifting it by the DVD side.

 

Well, the individuals I am talking about would have a lot of usage with the drives as they would be burning DVDs all the time for clients. Maybe its not a widespread issue but I just thought it was because they spoke as though it were a normal thing for the drive to just go bad and non-functional.

The comment about Macs being as expensive as they are was based on the fact that my specs are equal to basically the new macbook pro, save for the better graphics card in my system that cost $1400 US, my friends bought their macbook pros between $2000 and $2600 US. Before this I had a toshiba p35 for four years and did the same level of DVD burning that I do now and nothing ever went wrong with that system, that cost around the same price as my current system.

So I was just wondering, IF the drives were failing, and they paid so much for it, would this be considered an 'Alienware' situation where one is paying for brand name and not necessarily quality? That's all.

Based on the answers given here, should I tell the rest of them who's drives have not stopped working not to worry as those are isolated incidences?

 

Its nothing close to the alienware situation.
For one, AppleCare cant even be compared to Alienware CS
Form Factor, Weight and Design are also what carry a price tag compared to Clevo's.
And good old OS X.
SO there are more differences than just the internal Hardware that makes a MBP expensive.
Id assume that if there was a widespread issue with the superdrives there would be more complaints about it even on this forum. Sort of like the hinge problems on the Alienware when it came out. Or the GJOD in the Sager M57RUs

 

That's good to hear.

Yeah, if you go as far as slightly tipping the notebook while the disk is spinning in the drive, it will make a scratching sound.

 

May be it was pure bad luck.