While Apple continues to lag on including even the option to install a Blu-Ray (or HD-DVD) drive on any Mac, FastMac (a third party vendor) has stepped in and is offering the drive for some Apple computers going all the way back to a PowerBook G3.

It doesn’t come cheap though, the $800 upgrade is available for the following Macs, PowerBook G3, iBook/PowerBook G4, MacBook Pro 17”, iMac G5, iMac Intel and even the Mac Mini. It is not available for either the MacBook Pro 15” or MacBook.

The $800 price tag means this is probably aimed at those who created high-definition video content because I really can’t think of anyone else who would plop down $800 for an optical drive upgrade. $800 on a video card maybe, $800 on a monitor, possibly but not an optical drive.

This $800 upgrade package includes all the software and hardware you need to get the drive up and running. Blu-Ray is not a format natively supported by OSX so they have gone to the extra step of including Toast 8 Titanium, for the price you are paying, they had better.

In addition to the Blu-Ray RW (BD-RW) format it also supports DVD+R/RW +DL (Dual Layer), DVD-RAM, CD-R and CD-RW formats. Though, I would consider DVD-RAM to be a dead format, it’s still a nice bonus.

The drive is a drop-in upgrade for your existing optical drive and I’m sure that they will include instructions of some sort. Be advised you have to perform the upgrade yourself and doing so may void your warranty if your Mac is still under warranty. If you have doubts about doing this yourself, take it to the nearest Apple Store where I’m sure they’d be more than happy to charge you an arm and a leg for installing the drive and remember, that’s in addition to the $800 you have already spent (that does not include tax or shipping).

It remains to be seen when Apple will begin offering Blu-Ray (or HD-DVD) drives on their Macs.