KACE K2000 imaging speeds
I have a KACE 2100 Connected to my network and I am working with large scale image deployments. I am currently working on a 20GB image that if I work with one machine it takes about 20 minutes When I put more machines on the time goes up to around 8 hours to 1 day to image my hardware. I did the integrity test and the applicance is fine but I am not able to find anything on the best recommended settings for the network to user. I have updated the ports and all of that is done but other then that I am at a loss.
Any thoughts?
Answers (3)
Are you capturing your image as a kimage or a wim. The slowdown comes from the number of machines hitting the samba share on the 2000 not the nic usually. I switched to using wim files, they deploy in half the time and you can also store them on windows shares throughout your network which even helps more. I have had 120 machines imaging from one box and it only doubled the time compared to one machine imaging.
http://www.itninja.com/blog/view/wim-storage-freeing-up-space-on-your-k2000-if-you-are-using-wim-s
I am going to give a little detail. My KACE 2000 is connected to a Cisco switch that is 5 feet away and that is connecting to the machines. The switch does connect to my wlan to allow for communication across the network. So according to the math I should be done in about 30 minutes per machine but yeah its a half a day. I am using the K image at this time but I would be willing to consider a wim.
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I found that with a kimage the speed drops due to the file copy from the samba share (it is a file by file copy), wims did not degrade the speed like this. The disadvantage with wims is they will not use the deduplication of files like kimages do so the disk gets filled up quickly when you have a lot of wim images - SMal.tmcc 11 years ago
Replication shares! If you are doing it across sites or departments, using replication shares can reduce the congestion on your network which is probably causing the slowdown. Check out this other posting:
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These two are the only options that I know of, ie, switch of WIM and add replication shares (though not necessarily guaranteed). I've got a K2 box sitting there doing nothing because I can still image faster with WDS and its totally hands off. I cant wait till the functionality is built in for multicast and you dont have to almost hack the wim functionality into it. - Roonerspism 11 years ago
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Indeed. I might hit you up for some insight into that. - gcarpenter 11 years ago
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Even with using external servers for storage, I find the k2000 very useful for all the mid and post image manipulations I can do. We have one k2000 that has about 40-50 images that get get deployed to classrooms and staff, we reimage each semester. My classroom images average 20-25gig and I can cast to a couple of 30 machine classrooms in about 1.5-2 hours from pxe boot to post sysprep joined in the domain ready to go. - SMal.tmcc 11 years ago
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I was just reading through this thread and a few others, so I'm sorry that I'm posting in an old thread instead of posting a new one.
I see people talk about WIM images. Can someone point me to a resource to explain to me what a WIM image is, how to create them, and how to make them work with the K2000? I'm having a similar problem as the original poster here. I'm re-imaging lab computers in my school, and doing more than a handful at a time is taking hours.
Thank you! - MisterVertigo 11 years ago-
A WIM is a native Microsoft image, you have to upload some files to your k2000 that allow this functionality.
http://www.kace.com/support/resources/kb/article/kace-native-imaging-toolkit-for-k2000-v-3-4-only
Post a new question if you need some guidance, there is a lot of talent on this site. My email is also available under my profile - SMal.tmcc 11 years ago-
Thank you very much for that link! It is extremely helpful and will be a great place for me to start! - MisterVertigo 11 years ago
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I got the WIM imaging set up, and now I'm trying to set up the replication shares for storing the images. I netbooted a laptop, and I can manually re-map the T: drive to my server and I'm currently capturing an image and it's going to my file server as I want. When I get ready to deploy an image I think I can make a post install task to re-map the T: drive as well before it starts the image process. However, is there a place on the K2000 where I can change the location of the T: drive so I don't have to manually re-map it every time I want to capture an image? Thanks! - MisterVertigo 11 years ago