With the new MacBook Air and Mac mini, Apple has decided to completely remove optical media from the actual device. Sure, you can purchase a $79 SuperDrive add-on, but who wants to spend more money? If you already have another Mac lying around with an optical drive, we’ll show you how to use CD/DVD Sharing in OS X to share your optical media over the network with your disc-less Mac.
>> Mac with an optical drive running Mac OS X 10.6, 10.7, or a Windows PC (instructions and download available here)
>> Mac without an optical drive (currently the MacBook Air and Mac mini)
>> A disc to be shared
On the Mac that you will be sharing the disc from, navigate to System Preferences > Sharing, and then click the check box beside the “DVD or CD Sharing” feature. You can also select, “Ask me before allowing others to use my DVD drive” if you wish to be notified of other’s using the sharing feature.
Open the Finder on the Mac that you will be using to connect to the Remote Disc. You should notice a disc icon in the sidebar under the “Devices” heading labeled “Remote Disc.” Click on this to see all of the computers on your network that are currently sharing Discs with you.
When you click on a computer that is sharing a disc, but requires you to request access, you will see a button that says “Ask to use". Click on this button to send a notification and ask for permission from the other computer. When permission has been granted, you will be able to see the contents of the disc in the remote Mac, and use the disc just as though it were on your local machine.
Please note that if you are trying to share a DVD with the DVD Player application, it will not work.
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