14 DAY TRIAL // The idea of releasing an external drive (or USB HDD/SSD enclosure) that can double as a virtual drive by supporting the mounting of ISO files is not exactly a very new one, since the people over at Zalman had come up with exactly such a product a while ago, but nevertheless, there are still rather few such solutions out there, and that's exactly the reason why Japanese company UMA has decided to roll out exactly such a product of their own. Called UMA-ISO 2, this HDD/SSD enclosure (UMA's not providing any built-in storage for the device) works more or less in the same way as the solution from Zalman, namely by connecting to a computer's USB port and mounting ISO files stored within the HDD or SSD unit added by the user.
According to the Japanese manufacturer, this “external virtual drive” of sorts supports 9.5mm thick, 2.5-inch SATA storage units, while also sporting an LCD display that offers some important information on this thing's functionality, and a Y-type USB cable, used for drawing power from a computer.
Unfortunately, the UMA-ISO2's connectivity options are restricted just to USB 2.0 / 1.1 and eSATA interfaces, that support maximum 480Mbps (USB2.0) or 3Gbps (eSATA) data transfer rates, with USB 3.0 nowhere in sight.
Also, the device will only work with Windows XP (SP3 or later), Vista (SP2 or later) and Windows 7 operating systems, and sports a preset NTFS partition for mounting the ISO files.
It's also worth mentioning that carrying this thing around shouldn't prove to be much of a problem, given the fact that it measures 130 x 78.6 x 13.3 mm and weighs around 67 grams.
Last, but certainly not least, we'll have to say a few words on the topic of pricing, the UMA-ISO2 HDD enclosure selling (just in Japan, for the time being) for somewhere the vicinity of 9,980 Yen (the equivalent of roughly 123 US dollars).