Zalman ZM-VE300 Firmware Upgrade Available

We found the ZM-VE300 almost useless when we first received it as the firmware was really buggy.

• Zalman Updates Page
• Category: Storages
• Sub Category: External HDD/SSD Cases
• Product: ZM-VE300
• 

The firmware available as of this writing is R1005N.

Once we reached a fairly stable firmware version a number of months back we were able to select the applicable OS ISO to load on a system then press the top button and hold it to “Save” the ISO setting.

We could then unplug the VE300, plug it into the new system, and boot to the ISO as though it were an attached optical drive with the OS DVD in it.

Having a few of these units around the shop for quick access to OS ISOs for installing a new system or re-installing an existing system is a huge time saver.

Plus, we don’t have a bunch of larger USB2 sticks that would otherwise be needed to hold all of the OS files that were extracted from the ISOs.

One of the benefits of having the ISO appear as an optical drive is for older BIOS setups that may or may not have an available Boot Option Menu or possibly no option to boot to an attached USB drive. Some systems, server boards, and laptops today are quite restrictive in what we can use for an external boot device. The Zalman makes this point moot.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

Windows Live Writer

Zalman ZM-VE300: How to Mount That ISO

The manual does not actually do a step-by-step on getting a mounted ISO to actually stay mounted.

So, we would mount an ISO in the Zalman, plug it into a machine to boot the ISO, and end up with no mounted ISO once the machine proceeded to boot.

One of the catches was that we were mounting the ISO with the Zalman connected to the machine to be built.

The other was that we missed a crucial step when pulling the Zalman from any of our shop systems.

The proper order of things:

1. Plug the Zalman into a shop system.
2. Use the Jog Wheel to mount the correct ISO.
3. Click and Safely Remove the Zalman.
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4. Wait until the Zzz shows in the Zalman’s display.

Once the unit has placed itself into Sleep Mode the ISO will be locked in place and the USB plug can be pulled.

The Zalman ZM-VE300 USB 3 external enclosure is one of the best external enclosures for system builders that we have found.

• Zalman ZM-VE300 Product Page

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Product Review: Update on the Zalman ZM-VE300 USB 3 Drive Enclosure–This one is a sure win!

We did our initial review of the Zalman ZM-VE300 USB 3 enclosure here:

• MPECS Inc. Blog: Product Review: Zalman ZM-VE300 USB 3 2.5” Drive Enclosure with ISO Mount Capability A+

Now that we have had a chance to work with the unit we are really impressed with its ability to facilitate booting from “optical disk” via internally mounted ISO or to boot from the drive itself.

When the enclosure is in Dual Mode meaning both the mounted ISO and the hard drive storage are presented to the BIOS we are able to boot from either via Boot Menu.

What this means is that we can boot the Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 DVD so to speak and have the necessary RAID drivers on the USB hard drive.

Given that we have installed an 80GB Intel X25-M SSD in this enclosure we have enough room for all of the OS ISOs we require plus all of the current server, workstation, and desktop hardware drivers needed.

In the near future we will be slipstreaming the Renesas Electronics USB 3.0 controller driver into our desktop OS WIM files so that we can use the USB 3 interfaces on the desktops we build to speed things up even further.

This product is a clear win for us.

Even if we were building a lot of desktops or workstations, servers are our mainstay, having a number of these units around will make getting that OEM, Retail, or Volume License version of a Windows 7 OS, or even Windows XP Professional, installed in _very_ short order.

We will be ordering a few more of these enclosures along with some Intel 320 Series 80GB and 160GB SSDs to install in them to make the best possible combination.

Happy Friday everyone and thanks for reading! :)

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Product Review: Zalman ZM-VE300 USB 3 2.5” Drive Enclosure with ISO Mount Capability A+

As a system builder any tool that can make our life easier is very welcome.

Enter the Zalman ZM-VE300 2.5” Enclosure that we dropped an 80GB X25-M Intel SSD into:

The unit can run as an externally attached hard disk, an externally attached optical drive, or both.

As a test we copied a number of our key ISO files into the _ISO folder that we created on the newly formatted SSD. We then tried to thumb our way through the menu to mount an ISO to present to the OS that the enclosure was connected to with no joy.

• Zalman Support: Firmware Download Page for ZM-VE300

As of this writing the firmware available for download was R831.

Once we updated the firmware we were able to see the ISO files via the thumb wheel based menu.

While we keep the download names from Microsoft’s MVLS and TechNet sites the same so that there is no confusion once copied to the Zalman it is a good idea to rename them to make menu navigation easier to work through.

We set the ZM-VE300 in Optical Drive Mode only and mounted the Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 ISO. We then detached the drive from the workstation where we had copied the ISOs from.

Once we plugged the unit into the Intel Server System R1304BTLSHBN 1U we were going to test boot it on the ISO was no longer mounted.

So, we mounted the Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 ISO again and proceeded to boot the server. We hit F6 for Boot Menu, chose the Zalman, and were greeted with the Windows Server installation environment shortly thereafter.

We will continue to test the Zalman on other system builds that we do to see if we run into any issues especially on the desktop side of things, but for now this enclosure looks like a sure winner to replacing many of the USB flash drives that we have picked up over the last few years (OCZ ATV Turbo and now Kingston DTR500 series).

BTW, we also formatted the drive NTFS and set it to Active so that we can boot from the hard drive if there was need to.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Intel DX38BT to DP55KG Caveat – Activate Again

Our main office system decided to die this morning. It has been behaving a little on the strange side with network related communications becoming somewhat spotty. The Outlook connection seemed to receive the quickest impact from whatever was going flaky.

We had ordered in an Intel DP55KG, Intel i7-875K, and a CoolerMaster v8 CPU cooler early last month for the purpose of swapping out the system’s DX38BT, QX9650 C2 Extreme, and Zalman CPU cooler. There never seemed to be enough time to do the swap.

Well, this morning’s death made the swap a necessity.

The component swap went painlessly. After running the Intel PROSet driver update, a chipset update, and a few “New Hardware Found” dialogues and reboots the system came up flawlessly. The dual 80GB X25-M SSDs in a RAID 0 stripe were picked up by the newer version on board software RAID without an issue too.

Windows 7 did not ask to be re-activated as we are running Windows 7 Enterprise x64 throughout our organization.

But, Office 2010 Professional Plus (Open Value) and Adobe Design Suite Premium CS3 both requested to be activated again:

This hardware swap experience sure contrasts to how things were five, ten, or more years ago. In years past we would be hard pressed to save the OS and applications if we needed to change out the motherboard.

We have come a long way indeed.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Zalman CNPS9700 CPU cooler on Intel X38BT install issue

In a previous blog post, we had mentioned a configuration having the Intel X38BT motherboard with the Zalman CNPS9700 CPU cooler: Intel QX9650 Quad Core Extreme has a new cooling solution.

When it comes to installing the Zalman CNPS9700 onto the CPU that is integrated on an Intel X38BT Extreme Board we run into a problem:

Intel X38BT Bottom with Components

There are two electronic components that are stuck to the board right in the path of the Zalman's bottom bracket. When the bracket is placed on the spot it needed to be in on the back of the motherboard, the bracket would not sit flat.

The component on the left does not pose too much of a problem since there is enough wiggle room to get it to sit inside the bracket.

The one on the right however, is sitting right where the outside edge of the bracket runs. There is not enough wiggle room to have the component either fully inside the bracket or outside of the bracket altogether.

So, we needed to make a slight modification to the Zalman's bottom bracket:

Zalman Bottom Bracket with cut out

We shaved a bit of the plastic off of the outside edge of the bracket.

Once in place on the bottom of the motherboard with the cut out lined up with the electronic component, the bracket sat completely flat.

We were able to proceed with mounting the actual heat pipe cooler from there.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.