The star deduction is for _fehlenden_ Support by Zalman. This affects only marginally the product itself (see below) and not the seller.
Caveat: I do not use it with the built-in encryption, but only as a virtual CD / DVD drive to boot. I call four of my own (which I have two outsourced to friends). By the bankruptcy of Zalman I wanted a few secure me. Have two pieces since mid 2013. Two other since the late 2014th
I use the product with a 512GB SSD (also tried: hard drives up to 1 TB and 256 GB SSDs), which is formatted as NTFS. There are two firmware versions, one for FAT and NTFS file system. Within the folder _ISO subfolders can be created and they are also recognized us to be navigated with the "arrow keys". That was so in the documentation does not appear, but was happy of course.
I also have a Isostick of not working on modern PCs. So I was thrilled to have this case in such PCs usually works, but not always immediately. [Please read supplement below!]
Plus points after unpacking:
* The case comes with a leather sheath.
* A film protects the surface with keyboard and display.
* Small screwdriver and four Phillips screws totaled to close the case when the disk is inserted. If you lose the screwdriver, you need one of these watchmakers sets.
* Plate needs no fixing and locks onto the body, which has to be sealed only with the supplied screws.
Small flaws:
While * you are in the menu ("Menu") operate the "cursor keys", but the "Enter" key is required for the selection.
* Is it, however, in the edit mode for the CD / DVD images, operate the "cursor keys" as well, but "5" is required to the image "insert" ("Enter" does not work there).
* I keep getting a "HDD WARNING ???" displayed, but that disappears when you press the first button. This is because the body evaluates the SMART status and my built-in SSD does not return a temperature value. That seems to derail the firmware in the ZM-VE400. Presumably, that would not happen with a mechanical hard drive, as long as they support SMART (they do today to my knowledge all).
* Buttons are not sometimes you have to push a little higher or lower or sideways or immediately.
* Unfortunately, you can not switch to hybrid mode (HDD + ODD) from the ODD mode (ODD for Optical Disc Drive as the name of CD / DVD emulation) without effecting the connection is broken. That is probably the USB specification owed, but still bad.
All in all, a compelling product. Unfortunately, as with many products from the Asian region, the English in the user manual (there is no German, only English, French and Spanish) rather poor. But the product is intuitive enough and then you get indeed the limited information supplied with the manual that are not intuitively.
The above points would be for the point deduction is not sufficient for me, but the support of Zalman seems to be nonexistent. I turned to the email address listed on the website for international support (.co.kr) and still get no response after weeks of waiting. Now I have again sent the email somewhat expanded to the US support and still waiting for answer.
** Supplement from November 2014: **
Answer by Zalman to my support request never existed, although now a more current firmware was offered - but which does not solve the problem. The company has now registered bankrupt, because I am convinced by the product, I will buy myself to have them as a substitute one or two housing for the worst-case scenario.
Meanwhile, has also been found that not every USB port is the same. Even on computers where it previously did not work out right away, I have now brought the case up and running. Sometimes you had to use a different USB port (for example, rather than USB2 USB3, or charging port instead of normal ports or vice versa, respectively -. Depends on the computer BIOS, UEFI etc. from).
In some cases you have to sacrifice even the hybrid mode (HDD + ODD) and may only take the ODD mode. In fact, I use now almost exclusively the ODD mode because I use a case solely to replace stacks of CDs / DVDs.
** Supplement from February 2015: **
This unit is identical to the iodd2541. This manufacturer seems to verteiben mainly renamed products about Zalman.
The firmware is also compatible, but the included applications from Zalman and IODD refuse at each other product to service. This can be by changing one of the text files, which use the application, but deal.
So you can even obtain firmware updates, if Zalman eventually completely sets the service.
