Deploying an image

[bw38]

I have to deploy an image to a Mac lab in December. I’m not sure how this came to be or how. But the room where the lab is situated does not have any Ethernet jacks. Don’t ask me why or how that is. I’m just trying to work with them as best as I can given the department’s situation. I’m going to have to improvise by utilizing a gigabit switch to connect all these Macs. It’s going to be a rather brutal process.

I’m just wondering, how long would it take to deploy a ~60GB image to 30 iMacs simultaneously? I’ve done Ghost imaging on multiple PCs and it can be a rather seamless process if the image is small (although I discovered some rooms are not electrically equipped to handle that amount of network traffic which can cause a short circuit).

I know using Disk Utility it takes about 1.25 hrs doing it via FireWire 800. But if I did that (one computer a time) it would take me more than a week . Needless to say it’s not really efficient either. Although I’ve yet to mess with it, I’m planning on using DeployStudio.

Can anyone share their experiences on how long it can take to deploy an image of this size? Is it an all day affair? Am I looking at a couple of hours?

[Allister Banks]

Sounds like fun. If you have a bunch of requirements sorted out and a switch with a reliable switching fabric, Multicast ASR can be done via a bunch of different methods: PSU Blast Util, DeployStudio, the deprecated NetRestore, and other projects. More tips can be found here: https://www.afp548.com/netboot/mactips/multicast.html
I can’t speak from experience on either multicast imaging or large image restoration, but over an hour sounds insane for even a 60GB image. Throwing a netboot server to also run DeployStudioServer on that gigabit switch seems like the most flexible and robust option, and I’d guess a day is a safe bet(assuming the switch, iMac HDs, and ethernet ports stay healthy). I’d start with 3 known-good iMacs to test muticast with, and DeployStudio’s forum should be full of people who’ve tried it. Best of luck,

Allister

[ndpete]

DeployStudio is what we use for the mac’s in my organization. It works great. I once did a lab of about 30 eMacs in about 30min’s I had a few issues with a couple of machines afterwards but I figured it was from bad wiring in the room. I couldn’t even get a few of the machines to netboot. In your situation with a private network, a gigabit switch and if your running cat6 to each machine It should go pretty quick. Also we’ve got our system set up so you can run deploystudio from a regular client install of Mac OS X. So I just plug my laptop into the switch netboot all the machines from my laptop and send them off imaging.

[tristan_mason]

yeah, we use DeployStudio here too. Possibly as it is the easiest solution. It can be a bit flakey at times but on the whole it does the trick.

T

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