isostick - the optical drive in a usb stick
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/elegantinvention/isostick-the-optical-dr... The concept is definitely viable, since Sandisk did something very similar in their Cruzer line of products, except you can’t update the contents of the fake CD-ROM drive yourself on a Cruzer. I’m buying one! -Adam Thompson <mailto:athompso@athompso.net> athompso@athompso.net (204) 291-7950 - direct (204) 489-6515 - fax
That is pretty slick. I recently picked up a drive enclosure which does something similar. It is a Zalman VE200 and it will allow you to choose which ISO is loaded into the cdrom emulator (via a hardware rocker switch). It is a usb or esata device and the emulated cd/dvd shows up as a device and is bootable. A pretty slick device but not as 'convenient' as a usb stick that takes care of the bootloader/choice issue. -- Sean (mobile) On 2011-07-29, at 11:22 AM, "Adam Thompson" <athompso@athompso.net> wrote:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/elegantinvention/isostick-the-optical-dr...
The concept is definitely viable, since Sandisk did something very similar in their Cruzer line of products, except you can’t update the contents of the fake CD-ROM drive yourself on a Cruzer.
I’m buying one!
-Adam Thompson athompso@athompso.net (204) 291-7950 - direct (204) 489-6515 - fax
_______________________________________________ Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.mb.ca http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
Nice idea, but... $125 for a 8 GB device? On Fri, Jul 29, 2011 at 11:22 AM, Adam Thompson <athompso@athompso.net>wrote:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/elegantinvention/isostick-the-optical-dr... ****
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The concept is definitely viable, since Sandisk did something very similar in their Cruzer line of products, except you can’t update the contents of the fake CD-ROM drive yourself on a Cruzer.****
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I’m buying one!****
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-Adam Thompson****
athompso@athompso.net****
(204) 291-7950 - direct****
(204) 489-6515 - fax****
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_______________________________________________ Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.mb.ca http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
Convenience & weight. I don’t want to carry even a 2.5” HDD-based device with me when travelling, if I can avoid it. The Zalman device needs more power than many USB ports will happily provide. And an external CD-ROM drive means (usually) dual cables, an bringing a bunch of blank CDs with me, and the time it takes to burn them, and… etc. For my purposes, the 16Gb stick is *more* than worth the $185 it’ll cost to get it to Canada. -Adam Thompson <mailto:athompso@athompso.net> athompso@athompso.net (204) 291-7950 - direct (204) 489-6515 - fax From: roundtable-bounces@muug.mb.ca [mailto:roundtable-bounces@muug.mb.ca] On Behalf Of Kevin McGregor Sent: Friday, July 29, 2011 12:07 To: athompso@athompso.net; Continuation of Round Table discussion Subject: Re: [RndTbl] isostick - the optical drive in a usb stick Nice idea, but... $125 for a 8 GB device? On Fri, Jul 29, 2011 at 11:22 AM, Adam Thompson <athompso@athompso.net> wrote: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/elegantinvention/isostick-the-optical-dr... The concept is definitely viable, since Sandisk did something very similar in their Cruzer line of products, except you can’t update the contents of the fake CD-ROM drive yourself on a Cruzer. I’m buying one! -Adam Thompson athompso@athompso.net (204) 291-7950 <tel:%28204%29%20291-7950> - direct (204) 489-6515 <tel:%28204%29%20489-6515> - fax _______________________________________________ Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.mb.ca http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
I'm kind of confused; if the system can't boot from USB, how does this make any difference? Or maybe I'm just not understanding what problem this is solving... -- John Lange www.johnlange.ca
You don't have to burn an (arbitrary) ISO image onto optical media before booting it. Yes, ISOLINUX-based ISO images can be converted to USB easily enough, but it's not generally possible to do so with arbitrary El Torito images. I don't always have a burner, blank media, a USB CD-ROM drive, and enough (or high-power-enough) USB ports to plug said drive in. This lets me boot any ISO image with nothing more than any standard USB1.1+ port, assuming the computer can boot off a USB CD-ROM drive in the first place. When re-provisioning an older Dell server recently, for example, this would have saved me almost an entire day's worth of time. -Adam Thompson athompso@athompso.net (204) 291-7950 - direct (204) 489-6515 - fax
-----Original Message----- From: roundtable-bounces@muug.mb.ca [mailto:roundtable- bounces@muug.mb.ca] On Behalf Of John Lange Sent: Friday, July 29, 2011 12:23 To: athompso@athompso.net; Continuation of Round Table discussion Subject: Re: [RndTbl] isostick - the optical drive in a usb stick
I'm kind of confused; if the system can't boot from USB, how does this make any difference?
Or maybe I'm just not understanding what problem this is solving...
-- John Lange www.johnlange.ca _______________________________________________ Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.mb.ca http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
participants (4)
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Adam Thompson -
John Lange -
Kevin McGregor -
Sean Cody