2018 Mac mini vs 2017 Macbook

[addonexus]

I am in my first week of using the Mac mini and luckily did not experience most of the problems reported by other users.

However, the Mac mini boots up much slower than my 2017 MacBook. When I turn on my MacBook, once the Apple logo comes up, the loading bar is also displayed almost at the same time. When I turn on Mac mini, the Apple logo comes up but the loading bar only shows after few seconds later.

Is everyone's Mac mini having the same start up times like mine? I would have expected a newer machine will boot up faster if not at least as fast as an older machine.

 

[LeeW]

A different device, different boot time. Not all devices are equal. If your mini has more ram than the MBP it will take longer to boot as an example. There can be many reasons. Unless you actually do some troubleshooting to understand if there is actually an issue then nobody can help. By the sounds of it, the difference is a couple of seconds.

You simply can't compare on the basis one 'should' boot faster than another.

 

[sunapple]

It doesn't sound like a big deal to me, but if it is to you, you could share your configuration and we could compare boot times to see if it's maybe too far off. But like @LeeW said, it can be caused by many different things so maybe it doesn't mean much.

 

[iluvmacs99]

I am in my first week of using the Mac mini and luckily did not experience most of the problems reported by other users.

However, the Mac mini boots up much slower than my 2017 MacBook. When I turn on my MacBook, once the Apple logo comes up, the loading bar is also displayed almost at the same time. When I turn on Mac mini, the Apple logo comes up but the loading bar only shows after few seconds later.

Is everyone's Mac mini having the same start up times like mine? I would have expected a newer machine will boot up faster if not at least as fast as an older machine.

If I am not mistaken, your older 2017 Macbook does not have a T2 security chip like your Mac Mini 2018 does. The T2 chip offers secure boot and encrypted storage capabilities. Depending on how you set your security settings on your Mini storage or if you have an external storage attached with another OS, the Mini will boot slightly slower due to the additional enhanced security measures to ensure the existing installed OS is not security altered or compromised. The 2018 Macbook onwards has this T2 chip.

 

[addonexus]

If I am not mistaken, your older 2017 Macbook does not have a T2 security chip like your Mac Mini 2018 does. The T2 chip offers secure boot and encrypted storage capabilities. Depending on how you set your security settings on your Mini storage or if you have an external storage attached with another OS, the Mini will boot slightly slower due to the additional enhanced security measures to ensure the existing installed OS is not security altered or compromised. The 2018 Macbook onwards has this T2 chip.

Indeed, I do have some external drives connected to my Mac mini as well as the external monitor but nothing on my Macbook. I shall do a test again with the drives unplugged.

I actually did a recording of both devices as a way to track time taken at various stages. From pushing the power button to apple logo appearing to loading bar appearing to login screen.

Macbook
0 > 5 > 6 > 19 secs
Mac mini
0 > 6 > 25 > 39 secs

Time taken for the bar to finish loading is almost the same. It’s just the time for the bar to appear on the Mac mini that makes a difference. Maybe it’s the T2 chip as mentioned. I will try again tomorrow.

 

[LeeW]

Ok, but again, troubleshoot to see what is happening, this need to compare/time against a different device and not actually looking at what is happening during the boot sequence is not going to get you anywhere.

Mine takes about 25 seconds to boot up, I have devices connected, also set certain apps to start on boot and so on. So many variables. Recording the time on both devices

 

[addonexus]

I tried again with all the external drives removed. Now I am getting comparable speed with my Macbook. 21 seconds from power on to login screen for mini. Macbook is still slightly faster at 19 seconds.

 

[iluvmacs99]

I tried again with all the external drives removed. Now I am getting comparable speed with my Macbook. 21 seconds from power on to login screen for mini. Macbook is still slightly faster at 19 seconds.

Begin by attaching 1 external drive at a time and then perform a reboot and go on to the next to find out the culprit that causes the delay. Apple places a higher priority on Thunderbolt and Firewire devices (TB3-TB2-FW800) in drive scanning and with the USB devices as being somewhat last as Apple considers USB as less secure secondary storage (Thunderbolt being primary). Make sure if you have USB devices that they are the USB 3 type, not 2 as that will add to some delay. Turn "ON" the USB 2 devices after your Mac completed booting. If you want to speed up the booting process and/or if you have USB 3 devices attached have them in HFS+ format instead of APFS, though sometimes the T2 chip may not allow this for security reasons.