SkydivinGirl
Retro Girl
Hey everyone,
I received my iodd 2501 Portable Virtual Rom Drive today! For those of you who did not see my post about ordering it, this device is a Mass Storage and Virtual CD/DVD/Blu-Ray drive. It comes as an empty enclosure into which you put a 2.5" SATA hard drive.
This is a quick review of the device since I've only been able to use it for a little while so far.
First I want to talk about what comes with the device. It comes in a retail package with the following contents:
Installing the drive was a little more difficult than I would have thought. You need to use the opening tool (or a small straight object, such as a bent paperclip) in a hole on the side of the device. You are basically just pushing in a small plastic clip inside the enclosure. You push the back panel towards the top of the enclosure and remove it. You then need to push the top panel towards the bottom of the enclosure and remove it.
After the front and back panels are removed, you are left with a plastic frame with a big hole in the middle where the hard drive sits. You bend the frame a little to plug the hard drive into the board mounted on the frame. The sides of the frame have plastic pieces on the inside that go into the drive's screw holes to hold everything in place. Once you have the drive plugged into the board, you bend out the frame to get the drive mounted on the posts. It's a bit of a pain, but the drive is very solid in the frame after mounting.
After the drive is mounted to the frame, reconnect the front and back plates and you're ready to begin using the device.
My iodd came with a fairly old version of the firmware but it worked just fine, albeit with fewer features. I went ahead and updated the firmware to the latest version and got all the features that are currently available (I'll discuss those below). Updating to the latest version of firmware required two firmware updates. The first update must be run on a Windows system but it adds the ability to run future updates directly from an ISO on the device. The second update was an ISO. You give the device power, select the Firmware ISO update and it updates automatically, independent of the OS.
Features:
I'm very happy with my purchase so far. About the only thing I might do at some point is put an SSD drive in it to make it a completely solid state device. Regular drives work fine, but I always hate having to worry about bouncing them around.
There's a few small quibbles I have about the device:
Ciao!
Heather
*EDIT* This model has a firmware update available that lets you use NTFS for the ISO partition instead of exFAT. This update also organizes ISO titles on the drive's selection screen instead of listing them in the order they were put on the drive. It makes it much easier to find the ISO you want. All the later versions of the device also have this functionality.
I received my iodd 2501 Portable Virtual Rom Drive today! For those of you who did not see my post about ordering it, this device is a Mass Storage and Virtual CD/DVD/Blu-Ray drive. It comes as an empty enclosure into which you put a 2.5" SATA hard drive.
This is a quick review of the device since I've only been able to use it for a little while so far.
First I want to talk about what comes with the device. It comes in a retail package with the following contents:
- iodd 2501 Drive Enclosure
- Carrying Case
- eSATA cable
- USB Cable with two plugs on one end for additional power
- Quick Start Guide
- Enclosure Opening Tool
Installing the drive was a little more difficult than I would have thought. You need to use the opening tool (or a small straight object, such as a bent paperclip) in a hole on the side of the device. You are basically just pushing in a small plastic clip inside the enclosure. You push the back panel towards the top of the enclosure and remove it. You then need to push the top panel towards the bottom of the enclosure and remove it.
After the front and back panels are removed, you are left with a plastic frame with a big hole in the middle where the hard drive sits. You bend the frame a little to plug the hard drive into the board mounted on the frame. The sides of the frame have plastic pieces on the inside that go into the drive's screw holes to hold everything in place. Once you have the drive plugged into the board, you bend out the frame to get the drive mounted on the posts. It's a bit of a pain, but the drive is very solid in the frame after mounting.
After the drive is mounted to the frame, reconnect the front and back plates and you're ready to begin using the device.
My iodd came with a fairly old version of the firmware but it worked just fine, albeit with fewer features. I went ahead and updated the firmware to the latest version and got all the features that are currently available (I'll discuss those below). Updating to the latest version of firmware required two firmware updates. The first update must be run on a Windows system but it adds the ability to run future updates directly from an ISO on the device. The second update was an ISO. You give the device power, select the Firmware ISO update and it updates automatically, independent of the OS.
Features:
- CD/DVD/Blu-Ray emulation - Simply copy an ISO image to the _ISO folder on the drive and it's available through the menu on the enclosure.
- Folders - You can organize your ISOs in sub-directories under the _ISO folder and browse through the folders from the enclosure.
- OLED Display - Organic LED display on the device is very crisp, clear and easy to read.
- Virtual Hard Drives - I haven't tried this yet, but it appears you can make virtual hard drives with the latest version of the firmware. You select the VHD from the menu just like you would a CD image!
- CD Only, HD Only and Mixed modes - Different modes are available so you can limit what the computer sees from the device. For instance, you would use CD Only mode for an OS installation so you would not see the enclosure's HD during your OS installation. You can select the mode during device startup or after it's already running.
- Write Protect Switch - On the side of the device is a switch that will put it into Read Only mode. This makes it easy to ensure you don't accidentally overwrite your drive or get viruses on it when plugging into an infected computer.
I'm very happy with my purchase so far. About the only thing I might do at some point is put an SSD drive in it to make it a completely solid state device. Regular drives work fine, but I always hate having to worry about bouncing them around.
There's a few small quibbles I have about the device:
- Engrish Manual and Web Site - While this is not exactly about the device, the poor English in the manual and on the web site makes it difficult to understand.
- Cheap Feel to Enclosure - The enclosure is actually quite sturdy once you put a drive in it. I guess it feels a little cheap because it is so light but somewhat bulky.
- The selection button on the left side of the device need to be pushed straight when making a selection in for it to be recognized. If you have the wheel pushed up or down slightly while selecting, it might not be recognized.
Ciao!
Heather
*EDIT* This model has a firmware update available that lets you use NTFS for the ISO partition instead of exFAT. This update also organizes ISO titles on the drive's selection screen instead of listing them in the order they were put on the drive. It makes it much easier to find the ISO you want. All the later versions of the device also have this functionality.
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