Never Flash a USB Drive Again - IODD ST400

[@cchalogamer]

I've been using the older iodd/zalman branded products like this for years as a PC tech. While tools like Ventoy are amazing for what I imagine the casual users needs, these things present both UEFI and legacy boot options based on the host PC and ISO loaded. I've had Ventoy not work properly on a LOT of older systems (I deal with a lot of older folks on a budget that just need their old PC working again). Another thing I love is the ability to set it in optical only, HDD only, or both so you limit access to the system seeing your data on the rest of the drive while booting from an ISO, or use the drive to do simple backups. I don't think the casual user really needs this over Ventoy, but I tried switching away and that wasn't an option for me, now I just keep Ventoy on the drive I carry in my pocket with a smaller selection of images and really only use it when I don't have my full bag with me.

[@CraftComputing]

Exactly! Ventoy works wonderfully for ISO booting, but does have specific limitations or weaknesses compared to the ST400. All the comments below this are akin to 'just use Linux bro' because they only consider their own specific use cases. EDIT: Love you @Lemming!

[@amp888]

@@CraftComputing I think this reply is a bit too dismissive of the criticism, because in the video you directly contrast this device to carrying around multiple USB drives or needing to flash a USB drive every time you want to use it to make sure it has the correct image on it. Ventoy IS an alternative to THAT case, even if it's not as full-featured as the product you're testing. Of course this product can do things that Ventoy can't, but Ventoy doesn't have the problem of having to manually select images, and for many of the people who watch your channel Ventoy deserves a mention because we don't need those extra features. I think that's why so many people are talking about Ventoy in the comments.

[@kyoudaiken]

Yeah, it's more for enterprise where value (price performance) doesn't matter...

[@kyoudaiken]

@@amp888 I totally second your opinion.

[@bjackman16502]

Yup, I've been using the zalman for 5-6 years now. Started with a 320 GB laptop drive that was a leftover, then a 500 GB SSD and currently a 2TB SSD...

[@leonlionheart5504]

So it’s Ventoy as Hardware

[@levelnine123]

thought the same. I've been using an external USB hard drive with Ventoy for years.

[@PeterBrockie]

I bought one of these cases and returned it after a day. I found it a bit clunky and learned about a ventoy right after. Great program all around. One thing about this hardware one is that I was trying to get vdi images working in read/write. That'd be awesome for a dos drive with firmware updates, etc. Never did work in my breif testing. I don't think there's a way to have a read/write image in Ventoy.

[@CraftComputing]

Much more powerful than that. AES256 Encryption in hardware, VHD Bootable mounting, plus, you know, ISO mounting like Ventoy.

[@ejnshtein]

Ye. it's cool, but ventoy works with everything and it's free. But I can't really flash chromeos flex on it, cuz... google 😵

[@leonlionheart5504]

@@CraftComputing Now that I’ve watched further looks quite cool, Ventoy does the job most of the time for me but something I might consider in the future.

[@BillLambert]

I've owned the older iodd-2541 for many, many years. I don't use it very often anymore, but when I do, it's a joy. I threw in a pretty big SSD which comes in handy when I want to take an image of a machine before blowing it away with a new OS.

[@fuseteam]

Oh my goodness the clonezilla move, how did i not think of that :O

[@CoreyPL]

There is an option to save state (auto mount ISO on reconnect). This feature was available even on the earliest model IODD 2531 (Zalman VE300). In IODD ST400 you just need to press 9 on the keypad for 3 seconds - drive will save state and enter sleep (ready for disconnect). Be sure to safely remove drive in Windows BEFORE entering save state status to be sure that all data is safely written to the drive before disconnecting (for NTFS formatted drives).

[@AndrewEvenstar]

thanks for this, testing and presenting this product to my IT dept this week.

[@CoreyPL]

@@AndrewEvenstarNo problem. This drive is really useful for servicing. And oppose to Ventoy and other USB boot systems, it works with older systems, like 20-years old computers that come with some wood cutting machines in our company.

[@AndrewEvenstar]

@@CoreyPL that's awesome. and you mostly just load isos on it and have it load like a virtual disc drive right? anything special you had to do with those old systems?

[@CoreyPL]

@@AndrewEvenstar nothing special. If it's able to boot from USB then it will boot from the enclosure. It supports EFI and standard legacy booting. Mounting iso is everything you need to do. Also be sure to upgrade the firmware once you got the device. There is also a wiki made by manufacturer where you can find list of all the functions bind to different keys and key-combos.

[@AndrewEvenstar]

@@CoreyPL very much appreciated for your help. I'll review these notes and the wiki when I test tomorrow !

[@Space_Reptile]

have you tried ventoy? does the same and costs nothing and can be used w/ any USB stick

[@LemmingGoBoom]

If you actually watched the video... you'd realize there are things this can do that Ventoy cannot.

[@Absolute-Unit]

@@LemmingGoBoom yeah, but in practice, these things are flaky at best...

[@LemmingGoBoom]

@@Absolute-Unit I've got one that I've been using for 10 years now, they work just fine.

[@CraftComputing]

As if Ventoy is 100% rock solid...

[@physx_yt1062]

@@CraftComputing Well, you can't beat the value proposition and for most cases it might just be good enough.

[@marcogenovesi8570]

I salute you Jeff for the 4D chess move of not mentioning Ventoy or the other 2 or three tools that allow you to make a multiboot usb drive, ensuring everyone and their dog will flood the comment section pointing that out. That's what we call a pro youtuber move. ENGAGEMENT ENGAGED hahha.

[@marcogenovesi8570]

Also yes I know the limitations of the software tools, I also identify as IT administrator and I've had to burn CDs some times because stuff wouldn't boot otherwise

[@justinwatson1510]

Oh, now I feel stupid. Lol

[@xanderx51]

Yeahhhhhh seems that way lol.

[@CptJistuce]

It is a definite pro strat. People point out Ventoy, people point out to them Ventoy's shortcomings, sometimes people come back to defend Ventoy... and I'm part of it too now.

[@rjbrake]

make sure you lick the balls when you go all the way down the shaft. youtubers like that.

[@andrewspoelstra757]

I've had an IODD Mini for a while now. It is my most useful tool, period. On mine at least, you can press and hold the disconnect button while an ISO is mounted, and it will remain mounted when the device is powered on and unlocked the next time.

[@itskdog]

I have the 2541 and the ISO stays mounted as long as you stay in the same directory, even if the PC powers off the USB port on a reboot.

[@metroid031993]

I made a USB stick awhile back that had a GRUB environment and was set up to query the drive for a list of ISOs, and make a menu entry for them. You booted from the drive, then just selected the ISO you wanted, grub booted it and you were good to go. Obviously, it wasn't perfect, but it worked pretty darn well

[@supyrow]

Yup. Grub2.

[@bryanp.1327]

I've done the same but using SYSLINUX on a USB stick, and a static menu of bootable kernels. Only worked with booting linux distros, but that's all I needed it for. Grub2 would have been better, but I was already playing around with PXELINUX too at the time and it was a fun project.

[@supyrow]

Yup, syslinux! Thank you for correcting me. Custom background, everything.

[@danagoyette7932]

One note about the encryption: on the IODD Mini, at least, enabling encryption massively reduces the read and write performance. I think it was something like 1/4 the performance. I'd be curious to see if the drive is *actually* encrypted if you take it out of the case. One Amazon review says they were able to read the data from a locked used drive that was sold as new.

[@itskdog]

Not sure about the mini, but I have the 2541 and whilst I don't need the encryption so haven't turned it on (I went for the 2541 over the 2531 as I wasn't sure of the reliability of the side toggle switch control on the latter), based on the manual it seems that the encryption happens in real-time, as if you accidentally turn on encryption you can back out as long as you haven't written any data (i.e. initialised the now blank partition table) yet by just turning off the encryption. The encryption is just with the pin code entered, as the decryption is compatible with the desktop version of the product, the 3544.

[@eDoc2020]

Another possible alternative is a rooted Android smartphone with DriveDroid or similar software. If you already have the phone it's basically free. The only problem is it's been very unreliable on my current phone, likely due to some hardware or firmware quirks. But if it works it's great. One unique advantage is that since it's a smartphone you can download new ISOs without needing any extra hardware.

[@SomeThingOrMaybeAnother]

But that's the thing about yours or other software solutions. They aren't even close to 100% reliable. This one is simpler, so if you have to use it often, it adds up in fuckery avoided.

[@eDoc2020]

@@SomeThingOrMaybeAnother And the IODD is just software running on a different device. I think my situation is unreliable because of a flaky USB port. IIRC it used to be more reliable.

[@sinisterpisces]

Great video! Thanks for making me aware of this. it's on my list. I've used Ventoy and it works well enough except for when it doesn't work at all with certain ISOs, but in addition to the UEFI issues you've mentioned I've also had issues with the Ventoy disk getting corrupted somehow when inserted into a Mac or PC and either losing the ability to boot or not mounting the partition holding the ISOs. This looks to be a much more robust, less annoying solution; just select the ISO you want, plug it in, and go. And then there's the advantage of being able to check the contents without plugging it into a computer. I think this might also work for booting up Raspberry Pis and various ARM/x86 SBCs that support USB SSD booting? But what really sells me on it is the ability to use it to boot a USB version of Windows. I have a USB stick floating around just for that, and I'd much rather consolidate that and all my ISO images and Raspberry Pi bootable SD cards.

[@jttech44]

I've never run into a valid ISO that ventoy couldn't boot.

[@PsinetReject]

Ive been using the ZALMAN ZM-VE300 for over 8 years crossflashed with IODD firmware to support vhd/vhdx booting. Its still kicking.

[@NateBluehooves]

Hey could you elaborate on that crossflash? I have that same zalman and would love to add vhd support!

[@marcogenovesi8570]

@@NateBluehooves there is a "ioddfirmware" github repo with instructions.

[@perpetualtech5906]

I use Ventoy to boot from multiple ISOs on a single USB flash drive. Does this method not work well for you? I don't get to play with a lot of server hardware but I'd imagine it would work just fine. This little device is very cool though

[@jaylittlegm]

Most underrated comment on the video. Glad to see some other Ventoy users representing!

[@LemmingGoBoom]

There are things this can do that Ventoy cannot.

[@CraftComputing]

| Most underrated comment on the video | Yes, because no one else mentioned Ventoy ;-)

[@ppkus]

Well, there is a button in your keyboard, since the 80’s that does something magical. When you press “pause” during boot it literally pauses the process so you can select what ever iso you want… my first hd enclosure like that was a zalmann, back 15 years ago… still have it! Works perfectly! Now iodd has it in NVMe version

[@variouselite]

Wow. I had always wondered why that was still there. Thank you brother. :)

[@cykelsnubbencykelsnubben2350]

@@variouselite Unpause with Ctrl....

[@Slygathor]

I'm so mad that I just found out about this. I spent the time and money to get a tone of 32 and 64GB USB drives, a USB drive organizer, create all the bootable drives I need, and label them all. This would have saved me so much time.

[@gglovato]

Or you couldve downloaded ventoy and use a single or a couple usb drives

[@kienanvella]

@@gglovato some machines just refuse to boot to ventoy depending on age and firmware on the hosts. It's a great tool, but can be very finicky unless all the hardware you encounter is newer.

[@NateBluehooves]

@@kienanvella agreed. I am a pc tech by trade and ventoy works a little less than half the time on my customers’ systems. If you have modern non-OEM hardware you probably don’t need this, but the commenters acting like ventoy works great on all systems need to remember that their experiences are NOT universal.

[@gglovato]

@@kienanvella i know, it does happen to me too, and i keep regular pendrives for those rogue computers

[@Slygathor]

@@gglovato as stated above, it does t always work. And I’d rather not have to wait to find out it doesn’t and waste the time to make a new bootable that does.

[@therealchayd]

Like some other commenters, I've had the older Zalman one for a while, absolutely amazing piece of kit, and has saved my bacon many times in my old sysadmin job. One thing we observed with our units is that they tended to eventually kill any SSDs installed inside them (might be because at the time SSDs weren't really a thing and the old firmware didn't manage wear levelling properly. Likely this has been fixed in newer models).

[@Nexxxeh]

I'm wonder if a lack of TRIM is the main culprit, but that's speculation. I've had more and more early (~120GB, esp Kingston A400) drives fail regardless of use case. You can flash the Zalman to the newer IODD firmware btw.

[@therealchayd]

Thanks for that@@Nexxxeh I didn't know there was newer firmware that might work better. Will give it a go.

[@z3razerviper]

When you're using encryption on this device, be sure to safely eject it in Windows and then on the device itself. One of the sub menus has a safe eject. I've had a couple of instances when I didn't do the second part and I lost all the data on the drive. Yes, I'm running the latest firmware

[@bufanda]

If you want a cheaper options you could use the tool ventoy on a 128GB USB Stick. It offers you also the possibility to mount iso's with a nice boot selector.

[@LemmingGoBoom]

There's a number of things this can do that Ventoy cannot. One useful one is being able to hide the storage from the booted OS so it only sees internal drives. Windows has a bad habit of writing boot files to external drives.

[@bufanda]

@@LemmingGoBoom not really a use case for me. I use windows only for gaming and rest is Linux and I also only have Linux isos or XCP-ng and TrueNAS on my stick. And as soon as the devs of the games I play and enable proton support in their anti cheat that will remove windows completely from my life.

[@midnightwatchman1]

@@LemmingGoBoom I installed windows a thousand times and I have never had this happen to me. how are you letting windows just do want it wants.

[@tylercgarrison]

no VHDs though. I use ventoy as well, but having options is good. Or sometimes i need to boot multiple PCs at once, which is why it's nice to have options!

[@fierce134]

Great, another super cool gadget I want but don't really need! Thanks Jeff 😉

[@CraftComputing]

That's why I'm here :-D

[@marcogenovesi8570]

(angry wallet noises)

[@pyroslev]

I am not a tech but I am the go to family member in my family for fixing PC things. THIS is something I needed a long time ago.

[@ronsafranic5177]

Really wish you would have done a comparison between this drive and ventoy on a standard USB Drive. I use a M.2 NVME enclosure that isn't all that much bigger than a USB Stick with Ventoy (I have a second one with Medicat Installed). It is lightning fast and I would like to have had some kind of comparison to this device. Sounds like Ventoy has a real advantage in that you don't have to choose your .iso until it boots.

[@LemmingGoBoom]

​There's a number of things this can do that Ventoy cannot. One useful one is being able to hide the storage from the booted OS so it only sees internal drives. Windows has a bad habit of writing boot files to external drives.

[@Lighthouse_out_of_order]

Exactly! I see no real advantage over Ventoy.

[@vicentiubucingeni]

@@LemmingGoBoom Never had this problem. Windows will create boot drive on external drive only if you select that external drive as target during installation. P.S.: Some USB drives have a physical switch which toggles write protection. Would do the same thing. At a fraction of the cost.

[@92kosta]

@@LemmingGoBoom I've never seen Windows bootable files on removable drives, but what Windows does is it writes hidden "SYSTEM VOLUME INFORMATION" and "RECYCLE BIN" folders on all drives, including removable ones.

[@marek.lochki]

Yeah since learning about ventoy I have been so happy adding ISO to it and using it in many different scenarios

[@photon92]

I've actually gotten my coworkers to start using Ventoy at work and at home. I even went as far as to turn our custom wim file into a fully bootable ISO complete with a autounattend file integrated with it. When you boot the ISO it wipes the disk, skips the OOBE, creates the users accounts and plops you onto the desktop of our custom Windows installation. Took a while to get figured out, but man is cool to watch and WAY faster to install than a WDS server if put on an SSD

[@Neeboopsh]

back in the XP days, the unattended install processes were less refined but i spent piles of time making updated fully patched, updated drivers, with all my software so i could blow windows out and be fully usable in less than an hour. ie: codecs, ftp clients, different browser, different useful utilities. havent played with a WIM file for making an unattended new version of windows. ;) win10 largely works out of the box, updates most drivers, etc. but xp, i generally had a raid controller or other unsupported controller and needed .sys files loaded automagically before install could find disks etc. though this is true on win10 still? maybe newer builds have amd ryzen board raid boot support built in now. but i dont always run raid since pcie gen4 nvme drives are already way too fast to see any difference for a home user.

[@steve6375]

ST400 and IODD Mini SSD have additional advantages. You can secure boot to ISOs and VHDs without any compatibility issues. Encrypted drive. You can change the device type between 'Fixed disk' and 'Removable' so that the device or VHD either appears as a hard disk or as a removable flash drive. Of course, you can always install Ventoy or Easy2Boot onto the IODD drive as well. Then you can use the extra features of those utilities too such as live ISO + persistence, boot Windows ISOs and pick XML or injection file, install XP to SATA\SCSI drives (E2B only), Fully automated Windows install from unaltered Windows Install ISO with drivers, apps, etc. (E2B only), driver replacement (Ventoy only), etc.

[@msinfo32]

Looks like just Ventoy with a marked up price? It's just an enclosure?? EDIT: Looks like it does more, but not worth the extra money for an enclosure IMO.

[@LemmingGoBoom]

There are things this can do that Ventoy cannot.

[@msinfo32]

@@LemmingGoBoom Yep, But for most people needing just an easier way for bootable ISOs this does not seem worth it.

[@Hossimo]

@@msinfo32 I'm buying one right now, saves the 10 is USB images I use often.

[@jeroenvaneekeres9339]

Been using the equivalent from Zalman for years. Very handy. Sadly not all Zalman models were of the same build quality but mine has survived the test of time until now.

[@KernelFault]

Right with you. My Zalman is starting to show its age.

[@LemmingGoBoom]

The Zaman ones were relabeled IODD devices.

[@Jwalk9000]

Easy-To-Boot is my go to. I have a 128GB USB stick with a couple dozen Linux distros, a few Windows versions, and a few utilities.

[@rclarke250]

AS a field service technician, been looking for something like this, And for anyone who says try Ventoy, Sardu,Easy2Boot, or others, I have, they don't work for most of my needs, I work in retail environments, Cash register, self checkouts, pinpad, pc's, servers, firewall,routers,switches,thinclients, Most companies have a way to load through their network, but a few thinclients Dell,Lenovo,HP we need to load from an image, also I have found bootable linux diagnostics for registers and self checkouts, do not work in the other boot tools mentioned, they either start to load, and freeze or I get errors on boot. Ventoy is great if you have a few .iso images of windows or linux, for a PC, but there are a multitude of machines not in those categories that it simply doesn't work for. Not saying this will, just that some technicians deal with more than an off the shelf pc or laptop and Ventoy doesn't work for everything.

[@Sonofzudema]

The VHD part of these is really cool. You can set up a few Linux installs and windows 2 go, and then you need way less isos.

[@movax20h]

Another cool option with VHD is you could boot into one of multiple live CD ISOs, but still have VHD for your other files and have writable media, while the live cd images will be read only. Great for portable setup, as well switching distros, while keeping some big downloads (maybe games for example), intact.

[@thatzaliasguy]

NTFS support has been natively in Linux since Kernel 2.4, with a major rewrite having been done for the filesystem in 4.14

[@marcogenovesi8570]

it's low performance and there are no functional checkdisk tools, but yeah, it will work for a while

[@iodehk5205]

its still kinda buggy/issuey compared to a normal linux fs. but it does work mostly

[@thatzaliasguy]

@@iodehk5205 Oh absolutely, I'm an ext4 or btrfs guy myself; I just wanted to clarify the slight misinformation in the video stating "NTFS is not supported on Linux", when that's factually incorrect. It doesn't work the best as a native fs for Linux, but Linux can access the fs just fine for data management and transfers.

[@samsamsamsamsamsamsam]

Since kernel 5.15, the new ntfs3 driver is included, which performs pretty much the same as Windows.

[@xXREDHEAD93Xx]

Thanks for informing me of the existance of such a neat device! One note to the start about your comment on the necessity of specifying the maximum Height of 7mm: this is actually important, as some 2.5" harddrives are actually 9mm or even 11mm thick, thus incompatible with this enclosure (my 4TB seagate for example)

[@kurthuber7639]

Exactly. Some drives are still "large"

[@richardahlquist5839]

A friend recommended this to me a few months back and I love it. They work in infosec. They run a VM image off theirs and use it to work from any laptop they want without concern about leaving things behind on someone else's device. Since it's encrypted if they lose it, there is no risk.

[@beauregardslim1914]

Cool. I made a similar device a couple years back using a Raspberry Pi Zero. Of course it is limited to USB2 speeds and storing disk images on the SD card, but it works well.

[@bitelaserkhalif]

Can you give me a guide (prefer googleable keyword because KZbin hates URLs)

[@beauregardslim1914]

@@bitelaserkhalif I built mine from scratch using scripts and an IR sensor/remote but the gadget_cdrom project on github does the same thing with a nice OLED screen and menu.

[@VioletGiraffe]

There is software to turn Raspberry Pi into a functionally similar device. There is also multi-boot software to keep many ISOs on a single thumb drive and select the one you need at boot time.

[@brucekives2194]

What is it called?

[@VioletGiraffe]

@@brucekives2194 Ventoy, Easy2Boot - this is multi-boot software for USB drives. Don't remember how the RPi analog is called.

[@NicholasSouris]

I must admit...best lead in to Squarespace I have ever seen.

[@aronfaine9457]

FYI for anyone looking into one of these. IODD has since released a firmware update that enables saving the chosen ISO or VHD for repeated booting. You have to manually save the state using a key on the keypad. Once saved, it’ll auto load the chosen file every time it’s powered on. Good when you have Windows To Go, a Linux live environment, or a full on installation. Be sure to configure the system to show up as an internal HDD instead of external USB for best results.

[@GrizzLeeAdams]

Loved the older Zalman ones (and the original Korean OEM that made them). The USB 3.0 ones were bad about breaking off the USB connectors, but the 2.0 ones were robust. Hundreds of ISOs and floppy disk images all on one SSD was great.

[@knightcrusader]

Yeah I bought the USB 3.0 one from Amazon years ago and got the 2.0 one... and I kept it cause its much better than the 3.0 version. That one also lets you mount floppy, hard drive, and removable disk images on top of the ISOs. I can't work without it.

[@cuanham]

Mine broke on the toggle selector

[@Nexxxeh]

My Zalman one lost its firmware after a few years. It took arcane prayers and a P4-era PC running XP and software from a Russian forum to get it working again, but it did resurrect and is now with a fellow tech. I bought a newer IODD USB 3.0 one which has been flawless.

[@DerekAldridge1]

I've started using Ventoy a while ago, it's wonderful. I only have a single GPT one at this point, but may make an MBR version for the rare times that I still need that.

[@h2muller]

I love the new squarespace ad lol

[@JHolder1422]

I have been using Easy2Boot for many many years. This allows me to have as many ISO's as i can fit onto a regular flash drive and be able to boot to all of them on command. Great alternative for people who don't want to spend all the money on this enclosure.

[@shibasss]

I used easy2boot for years and it works like a charm for most things. I only encountered problems with pfsense, which needed some more steps to make it work. It's a free alternative you can use in a standard pendrive

[@knightcrusader]

I used to use e2b for years but then got one of these enclosures and won't go back. These are so much easier to use.

[@swylde1]

Have you tried Ventoy.. used it for years, allows you to buy a 32gig stick, ventoy runs a small os that allows you select from a list of whatever ISO's you have stored on there... so much easier and cheaper than this (albeit super nerdy and i want it) option. I usually have a couple of linux, a promox and a windows iso. super easy..

[@LemmingGoBoom]

​There's a number of things this can do that Ventoy cannot. One useful one is being able to hide the storage from the booted OS so it only sees internal drives. Windows has a bad habit of writing boot files to external drives.

[@cuanham]

Had the zelman brand enclosure about 10years ago. Did a basic version of this. It a massive space saver, as we always carried a portable usb dvd drive and a bunch of writable discs

[@STS]

Wow, this looks quite handy... might have to pick one of these up. Always a PITA when I put a physical in and have to dig out a flash drive. Flash drives have a habit if making their way to the very bottom of my drawer at my desk 😄. The encryption is a nice touch too

[@pepeshopping]

Been using that system (prev model, smaller LCD, different brand) for at least 10 years! Still have a couple of those but now I’m using an external SSD with Ventoy! Get with the times.

[@LemmingGoBoom]

There are things this can do that Ventoy cannot.

[@llortaton2834]

@@LemmingGoBoom There are things that ventoy can do that this cannot. Like a graphical launch menu (not pre-selection, LAUNCH) Like using any usb to fit multiple ISO If you need encryption i would understand, but this is rather a niche case scenario, most ISO do not contain personal / confidential information unless pre-programmed

[@LemmingGoBoom]

@@llortaton2834I don't really see how a graphical launch menu is that much of an advantage?

[@nbtmx1]

It's easier to see, easier to navigate are 2 benefits ventoy has over it

[@marcogenovesi8570]

@@llortaton2834 this has a GUI to selct stuff on its own screen, and it can fit multiple ISOs too. It's more compatible with older stuff or servers than Ventoy

[@DylanNyah]

Ventoy is amazing, let's you dump ISOs onto a USB or external HDD and choose which one to boot like you would with a dualboot system with grub, it's really neat

[@Kushari]

Correction, Mac OS supports reading nfts without plugins. You need a plug-in if you want to write to nfts.

[@HalfOgre0520]

OMG I HAVE TO GET THIS!!! I have a 4TB SSD ready for installation! Thanks Jeff!!!

[@tylercgarrison]

I originally purchased the Zalman version of this product, then the IODD touch version, then the mini, m.2 version, which is my current go-to. I have a 256GB usb with ventoy I keep on my keyring, but the IODD is great to have in addition. One of the best tools a PC tech can have in their LTT backpack :P

[@tigran2210]

Linus would be proud 🥲🤣

[@bsctchrz]

What about Ventoy?

[@hololightful]

A bunch of people mentioned Ventoy, which I've heard of and actually downloaded, but never used... So after setting up a flash drive with it real quick, I set out to test it out with different ISOs I use somewhat regularly. Somewhere between a third and a half of them do not boot using Ventoy.... so its definitely not a perfect replacement for this product. I'm going to get this thing ordered next week and try it out. It has some other features that I think could be quite useful as well.

[@AndrewEvenstar]

how has your experience been? our IT dpt just got one and i've just began testing it.

[@damsharma]

what i learnt from this video is IODD ST400 is a trash. its better to use thumb drives and rufus!!!!

[@WillFuI]

Great add 👍

[@NevaranUniverse]

Alternatively; get a flash drive with big enough size (128 normally works), install Ventoy on it and plop every .iso you want to have for booting

[@ShaneTheGeek]

Having this same device but with an internal battery so you can power it on to select and mount iso prior to booting a computer would make it so much more user friendly.

[@TonyHoyle]

They always used to.. I think it was a capacitor as it only lasted about 10 minutes but it was enough to select a drive and walk over to the machine that needed booting I hope the review is wrong on this point because it will massively reduce the usefulness of the new models.

[@negitivesinx]

Ventroy? Ever heard of it?

[@LemmingGoBoom]

There are things this can do that Ventoy cannot.

[@danceresort]

Iv had a Zalman for around 10 years now, its been amazing.. Keeping all my ISOs on there for "just incase" moment was life changing for me in the IT World. I worked (and now owned) an MSP so having all the OS ISOs for all the customers was super useful. If you work in this space this drive is a no brainer to get.

[@joelcarson4602]

One possible caveat is that some older PCs refuse to boot from USB 3.X. Since I use cheap, semi-obsolete systems for specific purposes, all my OS install flash drives are USB 2.0. I've even seen this from some older systems that came stock with USB 3.0. onboard.

[@LemmingGoBoom]

You can restrict the USB mode in the settings of the device. Or just use a USB 2.0 only cable...

[@matthewhaak8071]

I've had my iodd mini for almost 2 years, and I can't live without it. Looks like I'll be getting one of these too

[@naythin8354]

Dudes snarky humor is freakin awesome

[@UntouchedWagons]

I had a similar product from IODD in the past, I no longer use it in favour of ventoy but it worked well. The only issue is that when I formatted the SSD the IODD gave me a non-descript error (to be fair the LCD panel was tiny). Apparently I had to defragment the drive for some reason. Windows was understandably skeptical of my wanting to defragment an SSD but I got it done and the IODD worked just fine.

[@dustin8889]

Same, i used the old one with a numpad, also for encryption

[@mikeonthecomputer]

I bought the ST300 after seeing the video. Basically the same device as ST400 minus encryption support. A few notes, mine is running firmware 2.74.4, which may account for the differences: * (I have a 1TB SSD in it formatted with just one exFAT partition) * It can remember ISO image assignment for virtual CD-ROM drives. I haven't quite figured out how to make it save or clear on purpose, but I have done it by accident. * NTFS is not required to mount VHDs, nor do I need any special application for adding them, just a regular file copy works. * VHDs must be in fixed format, not dynamic. * Files must not be fragmented in order to use them; I have only so far experienced this with a VHD that ended up in two fragments. I can only assume the firmware reads the start and size of the file and does a simple block mapping to expose a virtual drive. Limitation might (and probably) exists for ISOs too, but I haven't had the misfortune of finding out yet. Linux has no defrag support for any of FAT32, NTFS, or exFAT, and the easiest workaround is to use a Windows VM. I haven't gone that far yet, instead just recopied a file a couple times until I got lucky with Linux's allocator so that it wasn't fragmented anymore. * The firmware is pretty janky and certain operations like ejecting a CD from the host OS side causes the on-screen controls to become completely unresponsive. When it works well, it's great, but it can take a replug or two to get it how you want it.

[@quebirt]

I bought one of these because of this video about a year ago, and all I can say is "SO CLOSE!" This is almost a great device, but it has one MAJOR problem that makes it a drawer-piece. It has no internal power, so it has no memory of settings. That means that when you power on the pc that you want to boot, you have to race down to the iso you want and select it before post gets to the boot process. If it fails, you have to reset the pc and try again because when the pc cycles power, so does the IODD, and it doesn't keep the iso selected, so it's a race condition. It's much less a problem for servers because they tend to take a long time to boot, but modern PCs tend to be booted before I can select an ISO on this. All it would take is some small rechargeable cell and this thing would be amazing. One little battery is the difference between amazing and trash. I bet some Engineer wanted to and his boss said "why? can't you just power it from the USB port?" We've all been there.

[@markdjdeenix6846]

what a nice tool !!! drive emulation with a pass word and encryption ! Turin would love this

[@MON5TERMATT]

Been using the ST400 since the week it came out, replacing my older IODD. ITs wonderful.

[@kflott]

I've used the iodd 2541 for years and loved it, very useful tool

[@jakubharwacki]

You won my like with a commercial at the beginning 😂

[@greenzero3389]

You don't browse Amazon.....Amazon browses you 😃

[@NonyaDamnbusiness]

I've been using an iodd mini for years now not only to re-image customer PCs on-the-run but to boot up IBM "firmware update" USB images via 16GB USB key VHDs on servers. Also used it to install pfSense, OPNsense, and Untangle serial images on Protectli boxes. I think 2023 is going to be the year I upgrade to an ST400 with a 1TB SSD drive.

[@fluidsc_]

I just run a m.2 to USB adapter with a 2TB drive in it. It has Ventoy, and a slew of ISO's and a couple of Macrium disk images to quick restore. Works for me.

[@jcugnoni]

Ventoy usb bootloader allows you to create a multi Iso boot disk and even add / remove images by simply copying / deleting ISOs on the disk. Simple, universal and efficient.

[@LemmingGoBoom]

There's a number of things this can do that Ventoy cannot. One useful one is being able to hide the storage from the booted OS so it only sees internal drives. Windows has a bad habit of writing boot files to external drives.

[@TrTai]

Dang it Jeff, I saw this a few days ago and considered pulling the trigger, put it in my cart before watching then decided to watch the video before pulling the trigger, went back and they were out. One of these days I'll learn to just pull the trigger

[@Jellyclouds261]

I work in IT in a sizeable manufacturing plant, so I am always on the go with a backpack with everything I need to fix a computer. I don't think I would like to use this. I have a 64GB boot drive with a USB storage partition for drivers; the rest is for the boot drives. I found the Yumi Bootable tool great a make a boot drive with multi bootable drives on one usb.

[@woodclear5606]

6:38 this is true however if you have a multiport usb hub that has a power cord that plugs into usb, you can use that in addition to a usb backup battery charging pack you can get almost anywhere, plug the st400 into the hub, plug the hub into the backup battery pack, select your iso to mount, the plug the whole thing into the computer and turn said computer on

[@Chopper087]

Just the ad made my day! Delivering a creative take makes ads watchable and not skippable! :D The ST400 looks great, would give it a crack, thank you for bringing attention to this handy tool!

[@DieKatzchen]

I actually had this on my Amazon wishlist. On payday I went to actually buy it and it's now out of stock! Now I know the culprit.

[@supyrow]

Yeah... been doing this on usb drives ever since Grub2 came out. Didn't have to purchase anything, just a usb stick large enough for th3 isos and memory requirements. BTW. I managed to pull this off using isolinux and wimboot from iPXE.

[@BrandonGracyalny]

We have been using old versions of the iodd devices for a while. There are some nice upgrades on this such as being able to boot from VHD and having USB-C instead of the stupid micro usb-3 connection.

[@rawsomeman]

I've been using a program called AIO Boot for a few years now. I can boot from both windows and linux also able to boot to special diagnostic cd images. Very easy to use and free!

[@360Fov]

What a useful concept! To think this has been around for quite a while judging by comments, and I had no idea. It's such a specific product, I can't imagine how I'd hear about it unless I thought of the idea first and then looked for one, or like her, happened upon it's existence... in other words, it's highly non-standard; hopefully that changes!

[@linuxgeex]

Ventoy works for anything with PC BIOS and/or UEFI if all you want is a thumb drive that you can copy multiple ISOs and VHDs onto and then boot multiple machines from those ISOs and VHDs. It's free software that you install into a flash drive, then you just copy the filesystem images onto it, and when you boot up it presents you a menu on the PC. I have Win10 and Win11 installers, Ubuntu, Proxmox, Kali, Gallium, and a few distros of the day, plus a Hackintosh VHD that works on many Intel Skylake+ laptops. Sometimes I joke that my office is on my keychain.

[@steelfalconx2000]

I got a 128 gb USB 3.2 ventoy drive with a few flavors of Linux, PC troubleshooting software, drive management, proxmox, windows, and a few other files. It's awesome.

[@JasonsLabVideos]

Sweet, we have something like this at work but much older. At home i use a 256gig thumb drive with Ventoy installed on it, everytime you want to add a iso to it, you just drop it into the root of the usb stick. Good Video Jeff !

[@cirozorro]

Craft computing highlighting great products and once again making them sold out and jump in price 20-30%. I wish I had one of these and will be hunting for one now. Thanks

[@zero_day_virus]

Have had my Zalman ZM-VE300 a decade now. Use it at least once a week. Saved me so much time

[@knightcrusader]

I have the VE200 and VE300. I honestly prefer the VE200, its got better firmware and will let me mount floppy disks as well. USB2 is enough for my needs and haven't really had a problem with it.

[@RemiDupont]

Old principle, we had one at work for 2.5. Glad to see they upgraded the thing.

[@SHADOWSTRIKE1]

I’d recommend looking into “Ventoy”. It’s a tool that creates a boot loader on a USB drive, and you can then install ISOs to the USB drive. So you boot into the Ventoy OS, and then select whatever ISO you want and it will boot into that. Then you can have all your ISOs on one drive. No need to buy special hardware like this.

[@LordMegatherium]

Cheapo alternative that's not Ventoy: get an Android device that you can root (and just chuck a large SD card in there). Put DriveDroid on there (there's a free version, the paid one costs 2 bucks). DriveDroid will let you select if it should present as a CDR, USB-RO or USB-RW device. Works 95% of the time. Only thing that consistently refused to work were CasperFS based system when using the toram param but that's nothing new with multiboot devices.

[@BandanazX]

Shhh! People like to buy thingies and do stuff the hard way.

[@LinuxAvali]

This actually reminds me of another device I backed on kickstarter in 2018. It was called the pISO and it was a custom shield for the raspberry pi zero that included a screen and a male USB 2 plug. It had a lot less functionality then the device you reviewed here but had the same ability to mount a ISO, but only from the fat formatted microSD card. It could also do storage partitions.

[@thegreeneyej]

I agree, good coffee is good hot or warm, or cold.☕️

[@enderst81]

Picked up an IODD wayback when they first came out of Korea. The KZbin videos and docs were rough. Then Zalman added USB3 and other cool things. Been using Ventoy lately, not having to drag around the enclosure and cables is better for me.

[@DigitalHi5]

I honestly thought iodd went out of business years ago... Good to see they still exist

[@marcdeschryver7687]

Really cool… ordered one straight away, after seeing this video

[@bojinglebells]

there are 2.5" drives (generally older) that are thicker, I'm currently looking at 2 different HDDs, one is 9mm, the newer one is 7mm. I even have some ~10 year old Crucial M4 SSDs that are 9mm. also, RIP Optane :(

[@Isaac-X113]

I moved to Ventoy which supports bios & uefi and every os. With a drop for iso or imgs. Allows you to use any drive as well.

[@imwacc0834]

One trick I learned a long time ago, SD cards and a USB reader. (Full Size) SD have a write-protection switch... malware, virus, and Winblows can't harm them. You can put good tools on them to download to the system. I don't remember if you can boot from a locked SD. P.S. Yes, I know malware and Winblows is redundant

[@RaduUrsache]

Ventoy still seems more easy and convenient. not to mention that you can use existing usb sticks

[@shonay]

Or... you could just install Ventoy onto a USB and copy multiple ISOs onto a single flash drive and be able to boot of each of them when you boot off that USB.... no money needed, no extra hardware needed.

[@MrWorshipMe]

You could just use Ventoy - does almost the same thing, without the need to preselect which iso to use.

[@ssj4megaman]

Oh wow, I've had their past 2 versions of the IODD drive and didn't know they made a new one.

[@Chaotic_Mind_OG]

I have the older IODD 2541 and have been using the ISO loader for years whenever I need to fresh install an OS on a machine or boot into recovery images for repairs. I have even used the VHD function. I do have the encryption going even though I don't really need it for my uses. I may upgrade to this model solely for the type C connector. I have no need for the admin mode and that is the major advantage of the ST400 over the 2541.