MacBook Air (Original): How long should it take to boot to CD and perform an install from DVD?

The MacBook Air provides several options for booting to the DVDs supplied with your computer. This article provides general estimates of how much time typical installation and utility operations should take using MacBook Air's Remote Install utility and a separate Macintosh or Windows computer's DVD drive.

If your installation is taking longer than expected, you may have a networking issue preventing your computers from achieving the maximum throughput possible. See this article for more information.
 

This article has been archived and is no longer updated by Apple.

See the table below to compare the DVD install experience under different wireless network specifications, using the Remote Install Mac OS X utility and another computer as a DVD "host." All times are approximate.

 
Boot to DVD (allows access to Disk Utility, Reset Password, Repair Permissions) 10 minutes  10 minutes
Install base operating system only 40 minutes  55 minutes
Full installation (including applications using both DVDs) 2 hours 4 hours
Archive and Install, preserving settings 2 hours and 20 minutes 4 hours and 40 minutes

 

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