@Alffeerew wrote:
Other threads in the CISCO Community say to boot from USB, and then copy once booted. While this works swimmingly, it adds an extra 10-15 minutes per switch.
True, but it might be done if you don't have sufficient flash to contain multiple IOS versions and once you're satisfied with the USB IOS, you shouldn't need to repeat this every future boot (once you copy the IOS).
Also, how ever you cut it, writing an IOS image to flash will take sometime, so whatever it takes, should be about the same. I.e. do the copy before you reboot, or after you USB boot. The only issue I see with a USB boot (or copying an IOS from it), the USB interface might still be running in the earlier (slow speed) versions and/or the flash on the USB stick might be particularly "slow". In other words, using USB at all might slow whatever you're doing, vs. copying to/from on-board flash, or to/from on-network tftp/FTP/etc. But, USB flash is generally much faster than having to do an IOS load via the console cable.
BTW, don't know about current Cisco platforms, but in the past, some used commercial CF chips for on-board flash, and you could sometime pop those in and out.
