How to improve your boot time in Snow Leopard?

[seasurfer]

My boot time is 34 seconds, I counted from the moment I hit the switch on button to the moment it enters the OS.

I remember I was able to boot Windows XP in 17 second before on my Pentium 4 many years ago. I would like to improve my boot time, is there anyway to do it?

[edesignuk]

I don't know...but do tell me, if you were able to achieve 17 seconds, how does this make any difference to you?

[iLog.Genius]

Get a 7200RPM HDD or SSD. Everything else is only a temp. fix. You can clear Caches or run Onyx to improve it but overtime it will just slow it down again.

[scaredpoet]

Quite a few of us don't bother to shut down, when sleep does the job quite well, and wake time is often faster than it takes a monitor to power up. And unlike Windows XP, the system stays quite stable even after waking from sleep.

Best way to reduce boot time is to avoid booting to begin with, as much as possible.

[numbersyx]

Originally Posted by seasurfer

My boot time is 34 seconds, I counted from the moment I hit the switch on button to the moment it enters the OS.

I remember I was able to boot Windows XP in 17 second before on my Pentium 4 many years ago. I would like to improve my boot time, is there anyway to do it?

Were you really able to boot XP in 17 seconds? I had a later processor and mine would still take over a minute and a half to boot. 34 seconds is pretty good for any computer....

[robbieduncan]

There are two ways to speed up boot time: do less or do the same amount faster. As noted above faster drives will allow you do do the same amount faster. To do less you can only really disable services. For example if you have Personal Web Sharing turned on do you really need it?

Comparing booting one OS with another is largely pointless: they are not booting to having the same, exact, system available in terms of services running, usability etc.

[roadbloc]

Originally Posted by seasurfer

My boot time is 34 seconds, I counted from the moment I hit the switch on button to the moment it enters the OS.

I remember I was able to boot Windows XP in 17 second before on my Pentium 4 many years ago. I would like to improve my boot time, is there anyway to do it?

Boot time boot time boot time. I remember when my Windows 3.11 boot time was bearly 10 seconds. Doesn't mean I want to go back there. I think for an Operating System of such complexity, 34 seconds is good.

I have never understood this whole boot time thing anyway. As long as the operating system works when it's booted, I couldn't care less how long it takes (within reason of coarse).

[eXan]

Just sleep it. No need to wait for it boot anymore.

[maflynn]

Why are people hung up with boot times. I mean windows you HAD to reboot it, multiple times but with OSX, its rock solid. Who cares if it takes an extra 30 seconds. Just reboot when you need to, i.e., updates from apple. Other then that leave it in sleep.

Besides, when was 34 seconds a long time? My XP machine at work take in excess of 5 minutes and its a core 2 duo. 10 minutes if I choose reboot, but a cold boot is > 5 minutes

[ss957916]

You say all that, but why are Google working "very, very hard" to make the boot-up time of Chrome as short as possible? Because people want it.

[edesignuk]

Originally Posted by ss957916

You say all that, but why are Google working "very, very hard" to make the boot-up time of Chrome as short as possible? Because people want it.

Its primary focus is NetBooks. They want you to get as long of a battery life as possible (so shut it down rather than sleep), but they also want it to be ready the moment you want to use it (boot fast!).

[andresaic1234]

when your computer starts, when the screen is in black hold down Option+R+P and that should make your start up faster in the next time. Or use Onyx for your OS version and clean up caches,etc. email me if u have a question.

[maflynn]

Originally Posted by andresaic1234

when your computer starts, when the screen is in black hold down Option+R+P and that should make your start up faster in the next time. Or use Onyx for your OS version and clean up caches,etc. email me if u have a question.

Technically speaking by cleaning up caches you actually degrade performance as the system and applications need to build out the cache again.

[scaredpoet]

Originally Posted by ss957916

You say all that, but why are Google working "very, very hard" to make the boot-up time of Chrome as short as possible? Because people want it.

And how are they doing that? By effectively putting your apps "to sleep" in a cloud. And the Chrome device is turned on, it checks the cloud which is always on.

Put your mac to sleep, and you get the same effect. No need to boot.

By the way, if you happen to be stuck with a slow (or no) internet connection, that boot time under Chrome might not be so fast.

[hazmatzak]

Originally Posted by ss957916

why are Google working "very, very hard" to make the boot-up time of Chrome as short as possible? Because people want it.

Perhaps so, but do they know why? Macs are quite reliable at waking from sleep, so that would be better for many.

But Google is coming from a different angle: they want to create an internet appliance that's as reliable and simple as your TV. It also updates itself -- both the OS core and the Chrome browser -- in the background. Just like your TV, you will want to turn it off. And then the next time you turn it on, it will have already updated and verified itself, and it will start just as fast as before and you won't even know that it has updated.

You'll never be prompted to restart, or worse yet, have the computer restart by itself, after an update. You'll never be prompted to restart after installing something, because you never directly install anything. You never worry about quitting apps or "properly shutting down" your computer, because webapps have to deal with people just closing their browser or going to another page anyway. On and off, just like your TV -- it has to start fast (stopping fast is pretty easy).