Super Talent turns flash drive into portable computer

Have you ever logged onto a shared computer and wished that you had access to your own desktop, your own programs and your own files? That's precisely what's being offered by the partnering of Super Talent's Express RAM Cache drive and Ceedo's virtual Windows desktop. Plugging into the drive of a host Windows PC and launching the application is said to provide SSD-like performance for launched programs and files. As all user settings and files are saved to the flash drive, there's no trace left on the machine used.

Super Talent sees the speed at which USB 3.0 allows storage devices to operate as blurring the lines between external and internal storage. Its USB 3.0 Express RAM Cache drive solutions feature a 32MB DRAM cache and four channel architecture that's said to allow it to perform less like a flash drive and more like a solid state drive. For those who don't yet use USB 3.0 technology, the setup on the drive is also claimed to vastly improve USB 2.0 speeds, too.

The company is now offering its USB 3.0 Express RAM Cache drives with the Ceedo Personal portable Windows environment pre-loaded, potentially transforming them into virtual computers.

Ceedo works with Windows XP through 7, and allows users to carry all their most frequently used programs on the drive and then run them on any Windows machine. Many Windows programs now come in portable versions and can be loaded into the Ceedo environment in User Mode without having to worry about pesky Admin rights.

After plugging the drive into an available PC and starting the Ceedo app, a taskbar appears that shows icons for all the available programs. When you're finished surfing, creating documents, editing images or playing games, closing the app down saves all of the user created files – such as browser cookies, documents or temporary files – onto the drive, leaving no traces on the host machine. The PC is then returned to the same state it was in before you arrived.

The combination would seem to be ideal for anyone who shares a computer but wants to keep everything contained within their own private space, or for students who want to use all their favorite applications on an otherwise locked-down campus PC. Business users will be able to use hotel or conference center machines more productively with their own business tools at hand.

The Ceedo option will add US$20 to the cost of Super Talent's USB 3.0 Express RAM Cache drives. The 16GB version will cost US$79, the 32GB US$139 and the 64GB version US$229.

Have a look at the system in operation: