boot times slower on my Macbook Pro with Seagate SSHD. What did I do wrong?

[mcapanelli]

Hello all,

Well...... I just installed a new Seagate XT in my late 2011 MacBook pro and boot times seem to be slower. It looks to my untrained eye that the computer is going through an extra step before booting from the new drive. Is that even possible? All I did was clone my old stock drive with SuperDuper, checked to see if it was bootable, and popped it in. Did I miss a step somewhere? I mean it works fine and is certainly more snappy than my old drive once working, it just takes longer to see the apple at boot up get started. Its sort of a bummer because I put the drive in for faster boot times, not slower ones. Any ideas? Thanks in advance for your help and advice.

 

[Bruno09]

Hello,

in System Preferences / System / Startup Disk, check that your disk is selected.

No only present, but selected.

 

[raptor402]

The Apple Logo on the boot screen appears when the Laptop recognises the boot disk and the boot OS. If there's a gap between the initial grey screen and the Apple Logo grey screen, it's most likely taking the Laptop a while to recognise your HDD as a boot device. To confirm, hold the option (alt) key as you boot and select your HDD from the boot menu. If it boots up instantly after that, your OS is clean. If not, there is an issue with your OS. Also, make sure you don't have any other boot devices in Laptop (such as another HDD in caddy bay, OS Install disks, Bootable USB devices, etc.).

I hope this helps.

Regards
Raptor

UPDATE: First step, of course, should be what Bruno said.

 

[mcapanelli]

Hello,

in System Preferences / System / Startup Disk, check that your disk is selected.

No only present, but selected.

And that did it. Thanks! Its ridiculously faster at boot-up.

 

[Starfyre]

Hello,

in System Preferences / System / Startup Disk, check that your disk is selected.

No only present, but selected.

Is this because the laptop may have multiple hard disks and the delay exists in searching for the right one?

 

[durkkin]

Is this because the laptop may have multiple hard disks and the delay exists in searching for the right one?

Yes and no. A Mac will boot from the first available storage device that has a valid OS on it. When you choose a boot partition from Startup Disk your Mac will automatically boot from that every time, as long as it's available. If you don't have a startup disk set or your standard startup disk is not available (such as a USB or net boot), the Mac then scans for all connected devices then boots from the first one it can.

So yes that it may have multiple hard drives, but it can also have other bootable devices as well. Yes to the delay in searching for bootable devices. No that it's searching for the "right one." All it cares about is finding one that works. If all you have is one HDD, then it's going to choose that every time.