FireWire CD-RW drives: several follow-ups

Three follow-ups from our item last time on the LaCie FireWire 12x4x32 CD-RW drive: The reason for a fan Regarding the need for a fan in the drive, Mike Mihalik writes: "During normal standby operation when you are not burning, the drive does run quite cool. It is only when you are burning that a fan is required; for several reasons: drive does get quite warm internally when you are burning. The heat comes from the added load on the power supply, as well as the additional power drawn when the laser is writing. Continuous operation when burning large CDs, or multiple CDs, will make the unit quite hot unless a fan is there." Toast 4.1.1? Joshua Ochs writes: "My QPS Que! FireWire 12x10x32 came with Toast 4.1.1 that supports the "Burn-Proof" technology of the Plextor mechanism. With this technology, buffer-underruns only cause the drive to stop writing, not write a coaster. Overall, a similarly flawless and outstanding drive." Note: Adaptec does not yet list 4.1.1 on their Web site. Also note: Adaptec's Known Issues with Toast 4.1 page has been updated. Plextor firmware updates and FireWire: a problem? A MacFixIt reader purchased a new Fantom FireWire 12x10x32 CD-RW drive, which uses a Plextor unit. Plextor is also used in units by LaCie and Que!. He writes: "I noticed on Plextor's Web site, that they have a 1.01 and 1.02 firmware upgrade for this drive, but it's only available for Windows." There are similar newly posted updates for the 12x4x32 drive etc. He contacted Plextor Tech support about this and they replied: Currently we don't have a Mac firmware updater available. But even when we do, it won't work with the FireWire adapter you are using. Every FireWire adapter is different, so there probably is no way we will have a firmware updater that will work when you use the adapter. Another reply added: Plextor's Mac firmware updater will be released shortly, but it doesn't work with FireWire adapters. Firmware updaters have to communicate with the drive using the standard interface. The FireWire adapter doesn't allow this to happen in a normal fashion. Your OEM that makes the adapter will have to help you out. Or you can remove your drive from the FireWire adapter and connect it directly to a standard IDE bus and update it that way once our Mac firmware updater is released.