Hardware I just bought the Korean version of the Zalman VE300... The IODD 2531.

[Jayro]

The Korean IODD 2531 version had much better reviews and firmware setup. For those who don't know, it's essentially a hardware optical disc drive emulator. It can boot from ISO files, VHD files, and floppy images, as well as being a standard USB 3.0/2.0 external harddrive. It's even Rufus compatible, and you just set the firmware to either FAT32 (Yuck?) or NTFS (Fuck yeah) when you set it up. This will definitely help me test MediCat much quicker during the development cycle.

It's biggest selling points to me were that it supports ISO, VHD, and IMA, and it's almost half the price of a $99 ISOSTICK, which only does ISO images. I have a spare 240GB SSD I'm going to throw inside. (My SSD is practically weightless and empty inside)

Once I receive the device, I'll do a formal GBATemp-style review for the product.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

I didn't know those existed. I honestly didn't even know there was a demand for them, since writing an ISO to USB and booting from it is so easy these days.
If you have MediCat on USB already you should only need to delete the old files and copy the new ones on, since the MBR and bootsector shouldn't need to be changed very often.

 

[Jayro]

I didn't know those existed. I honestly didn't even know there was a demand for them, since writing an ISO to USB and booting from it is so easy these days.
If you have MediCat on USB already you should only need to delete the old files and copy the new ones on, since the MBR and bootsector shouldn't need to be changed very often.

That's very true, but I do have to test it as a DVD as well. Not every PC can boot from USB (shocking, I know) and I currently have to use an 8GB Sandisk U3 USB stick to "burn" the ISO to the CD emulator in it. But it takes about an hour or two to do that. This device will solve that problem for me, as well as keep me from having to make bootable USB sticks in the first place. Just select the ISO, plug it in, and go. My external SSD is primarily ISO storage anyways.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

That's very true, but I do have to test it as a DVD as well. Not every PC can boot from USB (shocking, I know) and I currently have to use an 8GB Sandisk U3 USB stick to "burn" the ISO to the CD emulator in it. But it takes about an hour or two to do that. This device will solve that problem for me, as well as keep me from having to make bootable USB sticks in the first place. Just select the ISO, plug it in, and go. My external SSD is primarily ISO storage anyways.

That's true I guess. And that's a clever use of U3 flash drives, I have one laying around but I never thought to use it for that.
What would be really nice is if these could somehow be adapted to work on game consoles, especially older ones that don't have a good way (or any way at all) to load games from a hard drive. Might be difficult seeing as they don't use USB, but one can dream. It would just be nice to have a one-size-fits-all "modchip" that would just require an adapter board plugged into the disc drive socket on the motherboard.

 

[firecraft]

hi , im plane for buy iodd 2541 to carry all of my windows pe + windows installer into 1 external usb
I want to know how much reading speed is reaching with ssd ?
I want to know if the diffrent between hdd and ssd as usb 3 external worth or not to decide getting 2 tb hdd for it or 500gb or 1 tb ssd ( its so expensive X_X )

 

[Jayro]

hi , im plane for buy iodd 2541 to carry all of my windows pe + windows installer into 1 external usb
I want to know how much reading speed is reaching with ssd ?
I want to know if the diffrent between hdd and ssd as usb 3 external worth or not to decide getting 2 tb hdd for it or 500gb or 1 tb ssd ( its so expensive X_X )

I got a cheap $60 240GB Sandisk SSD in mine and have plenty of room after all my windows and Linux ISOs are on it. Speed is good too, I get over 300MB/s on USB 3, and booting an iso on USB 2 is still fast.

 

[DinohScene]

Forgive me for asking a possible dumb question.

This prolly doesn't work on Win 98/DOS right?

 

[Jayro]

No... Almost all apps are 64-bit and require xp or vsta as a minimum.

 

[driverdis]

Awesome, I love my VE200 and it is good to know there is a varient of the VE300 when I get around to upgrading for the USB 3.0 connection. (The VE200 is USB 2.0 with an eSATA passthrough for faster HDD access)