On the French site Hardmac, they discovered that the Sony-branded DVD/CD SuperDrive in the Mac Pro is not Sony at all, but rather, the NEC ND-4570 drive. A search on that drive showed that some of the specs for the ND-4570 were superior to those that Apple claims for the “Sony” SuperDrive (e.g. 32x CD-R on the Sony”drive vs. 48x on the NEC). The drive also supports DVD-RAM and DVD-R DL, two formats that aren’t even mentioned in the Apple/Sony stats. To unlock these features, you have to flash the firmware on the drive, which can brick it if you screw it up, but it looks fairly straight-forward, if you’re up to the risk.
[Via TUAW]
