So I picked up a new Mac Mini Server recently, and have been going through the process of setting it up to replace a bunch of stuff here at the house. During the process, I wanted to switch the hard drive configuration from two 500GB drives adding to 1TB, to having the two 500GB drives mirrored. As such, this required a reinstall of the OS. No big deal. Except the new mac mini doesn’t have a cd drive. It’s got a bit of firmware that will download OSX 10.7 Lion from Apple’s servers. No big deal, about 4GB with kick ass internet like I’ve got, should be quick.
Wrong. The installer said it would take about 5.5 to 6 hours to download. Bullshit, I said to myself, and to the google I went. I figured out that Akamai is hosting the Lion downloads for Apple, and I know I use the google DNS servers. So perhaps Akamai thinks I’m actually somewhere far from here. Changed my DNS server settings to SpeakEasy’s Seattle server. Marginally faster, claimed maybe four hours. Still bullshit. Next try was SpeakEasy’s San Fransisco server. Much better. Down to under an hour. That’s at least reasonable and I let it run. I could probably find a better one, but for now that’s good enough.