How to make an boot volume that will boot all current Macs?

[matts]

Hi!

This is a general Mac OS X question, not so much a SD! question.

I'd like to be _sure_ how I go about creating a boot volume that can be used 100% with every current Mac model, so that we only need to set up one volume the way we need to have it and then clone this to all Macs using SD!

This would of course save enormous amounts of time if we don't need to install every model (MacPro, iMac, MacBook Pro, MacBook, MacMini) from scratch.

Is there any way to create such a volume?

Is there BTW a difference in the end result of an install if I a) install Mac OS X 10.6 (including all later updates) on an internal drive of a certain model Mac, or b) on an external drive using the same model Mac?

(I have all the needed licenses for setting this up. It's just a matter of making the admin work very straight forward and 100% sure everything is running smoothly.)

-matts

[dnanian]

Well... it all depends on whether the version of OSX you're using as the base is usable by all the Macs you're deploying to. At present, I think 10.6.2 will work with all current Macs, but there's no way to know for sure how many special builds are out there...

[matts]

OK.

So, if we pretend that I have a OS X version/build that will work with all current Macs (or with all Macs released before a certain date)...

Do you mean that I could then use which ever of these Mac models to install this particular version/build of OS X onto an external (or internal) drive and this install can then be use by any other Mac (belonging to this group of Macs) as if it were installed using that Mac?

Is it that easy (if you have the right version/build)?

-matts

[dnanian]

It's basically that easy, yes. You may want to make the copy before you create accounts (etc), so you're prompted on each Mac after you copy to it.

[matts]

Great!
Thanks!

-matts