Symantec Ghost performance problem with Catalyst3750

[Jac0bSupp0rt]

Everytime we're using Symantec Ghost to put an image on a new machine on our network it takes a long time for the operation to complete. Even though both the server where the images are stored and the new machine are on the same Catalyst3750 it might take as long as 45 hours to complete the operation. With a crossover cable between the two machines it takes about 10 to 15 minutes. When creating an image from already installed machines the speed is not far from expected values of 15 minutes which makes me suspect a duplex mismatch but I can't figure out a way to prove it. I've checked the port status and statistics and they show no error. Ports are in auto negociation mode and they always come up at 1000Mb full-duplex.

I could set the port on the switch to any speed/duplex combination but there is no way I can do tha same with the NIC on the machine I'm ghosting, because it is booting with a DOS diskette. My questions are :

- Did anyone encounter this situation ?

- Any suggestions on how can this be solved ?

Thanks

[mchin345]

We need to know how Ghost is supposed to work on your network, whether the receivers of the traffic will join the group used by the server to send the files out. If they don't join a group then the traffic will be flooded, but if non-root switches stops receiving BPDUs it will transition the block ports to forwarding and this could have be happening back and forth and in this happening, TCNs would be sent, the cam entries flushed, and overall performance will probably degrade.

[Jac0bSupp0rt]

We're not using multicast for the moment (due to performance and traffic flooding issues), it's just one machine at a time connecting to the server. I've also checked and there's no traffic flood and no STP transitions on the switch during gohsting operations.