EtcherPro uses the standard open source Etcher app so hobbyists can use USB hubs to build their own drive duplicator on a budget.
- EP lead designer
Then again, if I was wanting to burn 1000s of cards a day, I would probably do what everybody else does and create/contract an actual manufacturing process. This seems to fall in the niche between somebody that just happens to flash a lot of images and businesses at scale that do 1000s and it seems like it's a bit of a perilous position.
In practice, lead times are long enough and release cycles short enough that it can make sense to have these devices at point of manufacture so you can ship with the latest software image.
Imagine you order 10,000 pre-flashed SD cards for your project but half way through the production run you decide you need to change the software. Do you discard thousands of SD cards and re-order a new batch? Or do you buy a couple of these and simply add it as another station on the assembly line so you can get back to production right away?
No, you don't pull a run of hardware mid-run to rev their firmware unless there is an absolute shitstorm which would also just be handled by the manufacturing process i.e. why would you ship the "bad" cards to your office or some such scenario rather than run them again through the same at-scale manufacturing process?
Anyways, as somebody already pointed out, the vast majority of these cases would be handled by live updates.
For those complaining that it’s more expensive than cobbling together USB hubs and multi-port readers from Amazon: You’re definitely not the target market. If you have a scaled manufacturing or even prototyping facility, having an engineer spend a couple days cobbling together scripts and instructions to do the same thing as well as maintaining it on the floor will cost more than this device. On the other hand, if your a hobbyist with plenty of time but limited budget then this isn’t for you.