From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Mar 22 15:29:21 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 874B2106566C for ; Thu, 22 Mar 2012 15:29:21 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from royce.williams@gmail.com) Received: from mail-we0-f182.google.com (mail-we0-f182.google.com [74.125.82.182]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 164F38FC12 for ; Thu, 22 Mar 2012 15:29:20 +0000 (UTC) Received: by wern13 with SMTP id n13so2577889wer.13 for ; Thu, 22 Mar 2012 08:29:20 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:from:date:message-id:subject:to :content-type; bh=2gL+PLLoZRF7kQCX25doyaaozw4Ax1kRSb25kf3ypUw=; b=aUVRa2ajZe8RkHygek3fzhLi8mjtbvUa/7diCJAcM96JVMPIW0qfMAtjkk8xdRa1/4 2mok23gGnHkcvOa+UI8EgiOENRC5kckyERA7UV/42JcvK/NuSWSWzOszk1vItmbgd1UQ 3L2dSTvC2EQVqfIooEJbWAhDB1Q8fdF98Fehblk7lIICdKp9z/67+1Sm57C+rVg+lRzj 43GHhx91Knoh5rn8/4aUmZwR16HBrIcUaS/nxY9MKjiPP/dNSTrbUUhWs/PhKG0YEb4l xNO2+iDhUWANuuoeY99d9dEJh5/X8QSEFPBShz97qizqVDQSO5/AfXTDkzNvD1dCk4Ou bXvA== Received: by 10.50.88.168 with SMTP id bh8mr1873432igb.29.1332430159385; Thu, 22 Mar 2012 08:29:19 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.231.39.20 with HTTP; Thu, 22 Mar 2012 08:28:59 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <20120322111547.GD50510@onelab2.iet.unipi.it> References: <4F699391.9070804@herveybayaustralia.com.au> <20120322111547.GD50510@onelab2.iet.unipi.it> From: Royce Williams Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2012 07:28:59 -0800 Message-ID: To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Subject: Re: iso2flash img X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2012 15:29:21 -0000 On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 3:15 AM, Luigi Rizzo wrote: > On Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 10:52:53AM -0500, Mark Felder wrote: >> As an alternative I recently purchased a Zalman ZM-VE200 device (there's >> also a USB3.0 flavor) that lets you copy ISOs to it and it will emulate a >> CDROM/DVDROM/BDROM for you so you never have to deal with this mess again. >> It works amazingly well. I was tired of fighting this problem and this is >> an amazing solution -- I can keep every ISO I ever need on a single drive. >> >> http://www.zalman.com/eng/product/Product_Read.asp?idx=431 >> http://www.zalman.com/eng/product/Product_Read.asp?idx=459 >> http://www.rmprepusb.com/tutorials/ve200 > > really nice, thanks for the link. Now if they had something > that supported a USB key it would be even nicer... I *love* mine - it almost always Just Works. Since all you do is buy the enclosure (around $30), you can put in whatever size 2.5" drive you'd like. I threw in a 750G, so I have ~98G of CD and DVD images. There is a physical rocker switch for navigating the list of ISOs and mounting/unmounting them. You can also toggle ISO-only, drive-only, or hybrid/both mode, so I've got lots of other stuff on there that's handy once you've booted. It also has a physical read-only switch - great feature. The only hangup I've seen so far is if the BIOS doesn't support USB-attached optical drives. There are probably some workarounds for that out there (boot from a USB and then chainload-ish the optical drive), but I have not yet pursued them. There is undocumented support for floppy images as well. I haven't tested it, but there are success stories. *Highly* recommended.