installed corsair SSD, then slow boot time.

[aleni]

i just installed corsair SSD in my UMBP17, everything seems fast, opening apps and such. the xbench test showed good performance, just like corsair said, about 90 mb/s.

but the boot time is very slow, my old 320GB 5400 stock drive was even faster, when i checked the "startup disk" in system preferences, it shows only "network startup", there is no other disk. i believe this is the culprit, Mac OSX is searching the "network startup" first and when it can't find it, it starts searching for the SSD.

what should i do?

[aleni]

well, i tried repairing permission and resetting PRAM. The boot time is fast now, but still there is no SSD in the startup disk. well, that's all right.

[Thiol]

well, i tried repairing permission and resetting PRAM. The boot time is fast now, but still there is no SSD in the startup disk. well, that's all right.

I hate to ask the obvious, but did you format the SSD in Disk Utility as Mac OS X Extended and Journaled?

[aleni]

journaled. it's correct right?

[Thiol]

journaled. it's correct right?

Yes. Can you describe exactly how you installed the SSD? That would help us figure out if you did something funny... I bet we can find out what's wrong.

[aleni]

put the SSD in the SATA hard drive enclosure and formatted it to Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) using Disk utility and then i used carbon copy cleaner to clone the current drive to the SSD. after that i put the SSD inside the machine and it boots slow, the apple logo took long time to show up. but when the Mac OS X loaded, everything seems fine, apps open fast, blazing fast. xbench's result is incredible. stated at 90 mb something per second. just like corsair stated.

i tried to restart the computer, it's still taking long times to show the apple logo. logged into Mac OS X, i repaired permissions and then resetting PRAM by holding cmd, opt, P, R at the same time and wait until the chime bongs for the second time. after that it's been fine until now.

[emt1]

You used GUID, right?

[aleni]

how do i use a GUID?

[Thiol]

but the boot time is very slow, my old 320GB 5400 stock drive was even faster, when i checked the "startup disk" in system preferences, it shows only "network startup", there is no other disk. i believe this is the culprit, Mac OSX is searching the "network startup" first and when it can't find it, it starts searching for the SSD.

what should i do?

I'm still confused by this first post. Are you sure that the computer is using the SSD as your startup disk (instead of some network drive)?

When you cloned the drive with Carbon Copy Cloner, did you check off the "make clone bootable" option? If I remember correctly, it might not be the default...

[angemon89]

You used GUID, right?It wouldn't boot unless it were GUID, so yeah, he did.

[Mazda 3s]

I have the same problem with a Patriot SSD. The machine stays on a white screen when it's first turned on for quite some time, then the apple logo pops up, then it boots into OS X.

Like the OP, my stock 160GB HDD booted faster.

[cluthz]

edit: already answered..

[Mazda 3s]

edit: already answered..

You edited too quickly! I was just getting ready to give you a big sloppy wet kiss!! :p

It worked!

[drayon]

hey? what was the answer?????????????????? how was this resolved?

[Mazda 3s]

hey? what was the answer?????????????????? how was this resolved?

System Preferences --> Startup Disk

Then make sure that your SSD is highlighted. Then hit restart and BOOM, you're done :)

[drayon]

System Preferences --> Startup Disk

Then make sure that your SSD is highlighted. Then hit restart and BOOM, you're done :)

So that was the reason for the slow boot? meh ..... lame , who's tha newb :confused:

[Mazda 3s]

So that was the reason for the slow boot? meh ..... lame , who's tha newb :confused:

I'm a Mac newb. I got my first Mac system (a 13" MacBook Pro) back in July. I haven't yet learned the ins and out of OS X.

I, on the other hand, know Windows like the back of my hand.

[justit]

So that was the reason for the slow boot? meh ..... lame , who's tha newb :confused:

Did your parents laugh at you when you'd fall over learning to walk? :D

We should be thankful the solution is so simple. Try fixing boot drive using DOS bios ... what a pain. :p

[angemon89]

So that was the reason for the slow boot? meh ..... lame , who's tha newb :confused:Problem was that when he booted up the computer, it did not know what disk to boot to because he had changed the disk. So his MacBook spent the first 30 seconds trying to figure out what to do.

[mickster1972]

Aha! I was having the same problem. My Seagate Momentum XT hybrid drive is now lightning fast. My old boot time was 33 seconds with stock 5400 RPM drive, then boot speed dropped to 50 seconds or more with the Seagate installed (first 30 seconds spent looking for the drive, I suppose). Now it boots Snow Leopard in 16 seconds. I knew there must be some simple fix. Thanks for your help! :D

[tonywang.xmpt]

Well I've been told that "technically,"
SSDs don't necessary increase the speed of boot time.
It does increase the speed of everything else.

Personally though,
my SSD dramatically increases boot time.
Go figures.

[Luis Ortega]

I have the same problem.
Mine is an OWC 256gb Mercury Extreme SSD.
I installed it by cloning the old drive to the ssd with superduper and then putting it in the laptop.
The initial time from pushing the power button to seeing the apple logo at startup with the ssd was 45 seconds, about 40 seconds slower than with the old 7200rpm drive, but after resetting the pram and smc it went down to 15 seconds, which is still much slower than the 5 seconds it took on the old drive.

On the OWC videos comparing the startup times between an ssd and a regular hard drive, the time from pushing the power button to seeing the apple logo is only about 5 seconds on both machines shown, and then the ssd does everything faster, but mine is taking 15 seconds to get to the same stage in the startup routine.

I keep thinking that there is some initial glitch when the laptop starts as it looks for a different hard drive. I did the selecting of the ssd disk in startup disk preferences but that made no difference.

[tble]

I have the same problem.
Mine is an OWC 256gb Mercury Extreme SSD.
I installed it by cloning the old drive to the ssd with superduper and then putting it in the laptop.
The initial time from pushing the power button to seeing the apple logo at startup with the ssd was 45 seconds, about 40 seconds slower than with the old 7200rpm drive, but after resetting the pram and smc it went down to 15 seconds, which is still much slower than the 5 seconds it took on the old drive.

On the OWC videos comparing the startup times between an ssd and a regular hard drive, the time from pushing the power button to seeing the apple logo is only about 5 seconds on both machines shown, and then the ssd does everything faster, but mine is taking 15 seconds to get to the same stage in the startup routine.

I keep thinking that there is some initial glitch when the laptop starts as it looks for a different hard drive. I did the selecting of the ssd disk in startup disk preferences but that made no difference.

I have the exact same problem except I have the intel x25m, I slapped it in excepting blazing boot ups but im stuck at the grey screen for a good 17ish seconds and then as soon as the apple pops up and the loading goes im stuck for another 35ish seconds.

Pretty upsetting tried many fixes to no avail (i.e. PRAM, SMC, startup disk), I even did a fresh install. Anyone have the solution to this, I made sure it was set to guid table and i formatted the SSD as 1 partion osx journaled. I'm lost for ideas.

Oh forgot to mention this is the 2nd x25m that's done this to me, I'm highly considering going out to pick up a vertex 2 tomorrow.

[tble]

Well I figured out what the problem was after much agony, my peripherals in particular my mouse. I'm using a steelseries xai (mouse) and it never occured to me that it was the cause of my boot time taking eons.

I unplugged it and voila, the new vertex 2 i replaced the x25m with booted up OSX in literatly 4-5 seconds. I had a nerd-gasm on the spot....

Hope this helps some people who've tried to reset their PRAM, setting the boot drive and reseting SMC with no luck.

Cheers.

[sascha h-k]

don't forget with ssd: sudden motion sensor OFF !

[Ice Dragon]

Ack... is this something else I need to worry about?

I thought all I needed when I installed an OWC SSD was to just install it and Snow Leopard and I would see a speed difference (which it seems that would be it).

What is the deal though with there being issues with boot time?

[tble]

It is pretty much plug it in and see it fly just a few small things you have to set it up, that's if you even need to. Shouldn't take longer than a couple minutes after installing osx.

SSDs are probably the best upgrade ever, makes the comp feel like it's worth a million bucks. It's so worth the money.

[Giuly]

Well I've been told that "technically,"
SSDs don't necessary increase the speed of boot time.
It does increase the speed of everything else.

Personally though,
my SSD dramatically increases boot time.
Go figures.
When you boot, the kernel, drivers, daemons, config files, etc. pp. get loaded from the disk.
Have you ever heard the sounds a hard drive makes at boot time? It's going wild.

These are all pretty small files, what you were be told was rather that SSDs are much slower when using smaller blocksizes:
http://www.tweakpc.de/hardware/tests/ssd/gskill_phoenix_pro/phoenix_pro/30-Mai-2010_04-34_f.png
A 600GB VelociRaptor (the fastest SATA hard drive) is much slower overall:
http://mundobip.com/admin/uploads/h/07_06_2010_00_07_10_hdtune_file_benchmark_wd_velociraptor_600gb.jpg

As soon as you you a SSD, it's faster, regardless of what you do (At least SandForce-based SSDs like the G.Skill Phoenix and the OWC ones)

[Ice Dragon]

It is pretty much plug it in and see it fly just a few small things you have to set it up, that's if you even need to. Shouldn't take longer than a couple minutes after installing osx.

SSDs are probably the best upgrade ever, makes the comp feel like it's worth a million bucks. It's so worth the money.

Oh no doubt... from all that I read I agree completely though is there a guide as to what I might need to do after installation?

[deus ex machina]

I have the same delayed boot issue (though I simply dealt with it).
The ssd does not appear in the system preference/startup disk menu ("network.." is the only one available).
What do I need to do to correct this and the ssd humming along?

Thank you in advance,
-d

[dr. shdw]

For future reference, you should always do a clean install and migrate your stuff over instead of cloning.

[deus ex machina]

For future reference, you should always do a clean install and migrate your stuff over instead of cloning.

Following your advice, I cloned my ssd, performed a clean install, then migrated the disk back. Worked like a charm, thank you.

-david

[Nigel10]

Well I figured out what the problem was after much agony, my peripherals in particular my mouse. I'm using a steelseries xai (mouse) and it never occured to me that it was the cause of my boot time taking eons.

I unplugged it and voila, the new vertex 2 i replaced the x25m with booted up OSX in literatly 4-5 seconds. I had a nerd-gasm on the spot....

Hope this helps some people who've tried to reset their PRAM, setting the boot drive and reseting SMC with no luck.

Cheers.

Same problem, same solution. Steel series XAI mouse. Unplugged and boot time went back to super-fast.

[hoching]

Same problem, same solution. Steel series XAI mouse. Unplugged and boot time went back to super-fast.


I encountered the same problem. I've installed a OCZ 120Gb SSD in the Mac mini (mid 2010) and have a clean install of OSX Snow Leopard and it booted super fast (within 10s). I've been used it for a month and one day the boot time just slowed down to about 1min (62 second to be exact, every boot use the same time) so I try to format it and reinstall, and the boot time still the same (62s) after a clean install. I was puzzled and try to pull all the peripheral out of the Mini and the boot time restored to within 10s. Then i use my time machine to restore the SSD (the newly install OSX was erased) and the boot time restore!! But the boot time slow down again after few days....

Two things are learned in this experience:
1. Time Machine Restore may not erase ALL the data in your drive.
2. Periperals may affect the OSX boot time (OSX seems waiting for something at boot time)

anyone have any idea about the slow boot? (i have a macbook with HDD that never has such problem)

[cpineda]

After cloning to your new SSD and rebooting, be sure to go to System Preferences | Startup Disk ... select your new SSD drive as the boot disk. I know this seems counter intuitive since of course you have already booted, but this stops your Mac from searching for alternative boot devices (usually the NIC) before finally booting from your new SSD.

I had 45 second +/- cold boots after I installed my new 250GB Crucial SSD in my Aluminum MacBook ... after selecting the SSD in Boot Disk prefs, I now have 10-15 second boots. And the SSD is blazingly fast. Great upgrade.

[ibarnett]

Thanks guys!!
I am on my 1st Mac, a Macbook Pro, & have just installed a re-formated SSD to the Mac system & couldn't understand the slow boot time.
This thread has solved the problem!
All happy now.