SuperSpeedBlazer claims to boot Windows on a Mac in 10 seconds flat | Gaming

Apple has supported dual-booting Macs for years with Windows Boot Camp, but switching from macOS to Windows requires precious time and storage space. A new device called SuperSpeedBlazer promises to change that, using a high-speed USB 3.1 memory stick to boot a Mac into Windows in only 10 seconds — with a few caveats.

SuperSpeedBlazer’s premise is compelling: Developer James JY Cho pitches it as a plug-and-play way to quickly boot the same Windows desktop on a Mac or Windows PC. You can choose between a USB-C or USB-A connector based on your existing computers, and assuming they’re USB 3.1 capable, the stick can deliver up to 1GB per second transfer speeds. That’s two to four times faster than common USB flash drives, and fast enough to transfer a 4GB movie in roughly five seconds.

Each version of SuperSpeedBlazer comes with Windows 10 To Go, notably including DirectX 11 support for games — a feature that’s not supported by the Mac’s Parallels emulator. Additionally, both Windows and Apple’s Boot Camp 6 come preinstalled and ready to use, rather than requiring any user effort or experience.

Users have the choice of 64GB, 128GB, or 256GB storage capacities, enabling you to carry around whichever apps and games you want. Cho’s prices regularly start at $170 and climb to $399, depending on capacity.

There are a few nontrivial issues to consider before spending your cash. First, Cho is offering the accessory as an Indiegogo campaign from South Korea, and says that it will ship in November. You can believe or disbelieve that based on your trust factor for crowdfunding campaigns, but substantial “early bird” discounts are available if you’re willing to take the plunge.

Second, if you look carefully at the Indiegogo page, you’ll note that SuperSpeedBlazer comes with Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise, or Education pre-installed, but you have to provide the Windows license key yourself. In other words, you’re paying mostly for a particularly high-speed USB flash drive, the convenience of pre-installed software, and whatever post-purchase service the developer provides.

Last but not least, though Boot Camp 6 should work for most users today, there’s no guarantee that it will continue to work with updated Windows and macOS versions. Cho also notes that the existing version of Boot Camp has audio driver problems with some Macs, including the 2015 MacBook Pro, “and we hope that Apple releases a fix for this so we can later release to you.”

In other words, consider yourself warned — this isn’t a perfect solution. But if you’ve been wanting a plug-and-play solution to quickly boot Windows on your Mac, and don’t want to do all the flash drive sourcing and software installation work yourself, this is an option.