I want to publish a cached map service where the GIS server will not have, or will cease to have, access to the source data. I have large collections of aerial photos on an external hard drive. I want to create the cache tiles in ArcGIS Desktop on my workstation PC, publish a service, then copy the cache to the server. I had this working, until the server loses its connection to the source data that I used to publish the service. It has the cache, but the service stops displaying the data.
Any ideas, or perhaps a different workflow for this? Thanks.