Deployment Solution

Is there a way I can store my images to an UNC path in DS7.1? I can't store them on the NS and/or site server because of space issues. I see there is an HTTP option but it seems like it would be slower going through a web server and a lot more work to set up. 

Unfortunately no, there is no such option anymore on DS7.1 as it was on 6.9. 

Is there any reason that functionality wasn't added to 7.x?  I can see many benefits to being able to store images to a UNC path.  An example would be a backup image of a machine that you don't necessarily need (or want) at any other location, not to mention the reason above about space constraints.

The next release should address this problem in a different way. DS will now leverage the package server functionality.

The package server is being decoupled from Task Server, so the images will be saved on package Server.

Hope this helps

But this doesn't resolve the issue at all. With IT departments having and relying on central storage, having to store 10-30 GB images on a server doesn't make any sense. It would make more sense to have the images be stored with or in the software catalog which can be a UNC path. Having images stored on package server rather than Site server is just moving storage from one machine to another when in reality all servers should be able to access the same information from a central location.

And IIS is not the answer...it is just too slow and cumbersome. With 6.9 we can image Windows 7 machines in 6 minutes using a UNC path but in 7.1 we're looking at an hour or more having to use IIS if we want to centrally store our images.

It simply makes no sense at all and I can't see us using any of the pre-built tasks if we have to write our own to work around this issue which is just a waste of time.