Computer techs spend a lot of their time installing and reinstalling software on ailing machines. That usually means they have to carry optical discs around with them, sometimes quite an array. The discs are bulky and prone to damage. So, wouldn’t it be cool if the ISO disc image (the contents of a CD or DVD) could be carried on a USB stick? Compact in the pocket, and protected from damage? Alas, many computers won’t boot from a traditional USB flash drive, so that idea is a non-starter. Or is it?
The idea behind the isostick is that it has the form factor of a USB flash drive, but when plugged into any computer, will be seen as both a standard USB storage stick, and as an actual optical drive (and thus fully bootable). It’s possible to store several ISOs on the stick and manage them with software kept on the tech’s computer, so it’s not limited to a single install role. There’s also a read-only switch on the side that can be engaged to prevent the stick picking up viruses from machines where that is a suspected problem.
The isostick is a Kickstarter project that has just reached full funding, so if this sounds like something that would make your life easier, you might want to head over to the project page, where there’s a detailed FAQ covering a number of potential questions. They’re available in 8, 16 and 32GB sizes at prices of $125, $175, and $225.
Hello Dave,
thank you for finding this amazing trick of technology. Well written article, in my view.
Take care,
nick
I’ve been trying to implement this sort of trick on my Teensy. If anyone knows how to pull it off, I’m all ears. I’d like to present one of two partitions from an SD card as a CDROM.
This is ridiculous, you can turn almost any cheap USB sticks in bootable ones (for almost all linux and windows O.S.) without anything else, and you can boot directly from the usb stick (all the latest computers support booting of usb stick) you don’t need an optical drive or optical drive hardware emulator.
Is not as elegant as copying the iso file, but why to pay extra, how many times are you installing OSes and if you are a SYSadmin you can make a stick for every O.S. in the company, you don’t need this.
I hate to break it to you, but optical drives are not the future, will be antiquated equipment in a few years, so why you will need to emulate one when you can boot directly from a normal USB stick?
My prediction for this product: will die young, very young if it will make it pass the production.
I absolutely agree that optical drives are not the future, but an awful lot of companies (particularly bigger ones, with a lot of computers) live firmly rooted in the past. The key to your statement is “all the latest computers”, something big companies are extremely reluctant to invest in more often than once every several years. I had a floppy drive on my work computer years after I no longer had one on my home machine.