Boot time not fast enough with SSD on MBP

[walt disney]

Hi everyone,
I have Macbook Pro 13'' early 2011 (A1287), and just today I bought SSD and installed it in my MBP. The improvement is obvious, applications load pretty quick, everything is much snappier so I am mostly pleased with it. When it comes to boot time, it amounts to somewhere between 25-30 seconds, now this is fast enough for me but I noticed that most people report boot times of up to 15 seconds after SSD upgrade. So I am curious about this, I checked the start up disk option and it seems okay, there's only 3 seconds delay before the apple logo appears. The SSD in question is ADATA Ultimate SU800. Also I run the Blackmagic disk speed test, it gives write speed of around 420 MB/s and read speed of around 510 MB/s.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Hi everyone,
I have Macbook Pro 13'' early 2011 (A1287), and just today I bought SSD and installed it in my MBP. The improvement is obvious, applications load pretty quick, everything is much snappier so I am mostly pleased with it. When it comes to boot time, it amounts to somewhere between 25-30 seconds, now this is fast enough for me but I noticed that most people report boot times of up to 15 seconds after SSD upgrade. So I am curious about this, I checked the start up disk option and it seems okay, there's only 3 seconds delay before the apple logo appears. The SSD in question is ADATA Ultimate SU800. Also I run the Blackmagic disk speed test, it gives write speed of around 420 MB/s and read speed of around 510 MB/s.

Make sure you have changed the boot drive to the new drive on start up this is a common issue and is almost always fixed by changing this setting. Your mac is probably still looking for the old drive before booting the new one. Your speeds are as expected.

Instructions are here.

http://osxdaily.com/2011/03/22/change-the-mac-startup-drive-on-boot/

 

[PBG4 Dude]

Make sure you have changed the boot drive to the new drive on start up this is a common issue and is almost always fixed by changing this setting. Your mac is probably still looking for the old drive before booting the new one. Your speeds are as expected.

Instructions are here.

http://osxdaily.com/2011/03/22/change-the-mac-startup-drive-on-boot/

Or, alternatively, you can go into System Preferences --> Startup Disk and pick which drive macOS should try to use first.

 

[ZapNZs]

• Judging by your sustained write speeds, I am guessing this is the 256 or 512 size?
• Is this being timed 25-30 seconds from where you push the power button until when you see the home screen (i.e., via Automatic Login), or 25-30 seconds until when you see the login screen where the password is entered?
• Was the install a fresh install or an image clone? (If a clone, how full is the SSD?)
• Is TRIM enabled? (this probably would have limited-to-minimal impact here, but it should benefit this particular drive quite a bit)
• Are any startup/login processes being loaded from any of the launchd folders?
• Is FileVault enabled? (if so, has the encryption process completed?)
• Are any mdworker/mds processes running to indicate the drive is still being indexed?

 

[Audit13]

Don't forget the possibility of a failing hard drive cable.

A fresh install of Sierra on my early 2011 13" has a boot time of roughly 10 seconds from pushing the power button to when I have to enter my password. Trim is enabled, no programs loading at start up, no encryption.

 

[walt disney]

Make sure you have changed the boot drive to the new drive on start up this is a common issue and is almost always fixed by changing this setting. Your mac is probably still looking for the old drive before booting the new one. Your speeds are as expected.

Instructions are here.

http://osxdaily.com/2011/03/22/change-the-mac-startup-drive-on-boot/

Or, alternatively, you can go into System Preferences --> Startup Disk and pick which drive macOS should try to use first.

Yeah, I have actually done that prior to posting (there is only one hard drive currently in the MBP, the ssd one), here is the screenshot of the startup option so you guys can see if I set it up wrong.

• Judging by your sustained write speeds, I am guessing this is the 256 or 512 size?
• Is this being timed 25-30 seconds from where you push the power button until when you see the home screen (i.e., via Automatic Login), or 25-30 seconds until when you see the login screen where the password is entered?
• Was the install a fresh install or an image clone? (If a clone, how full is the SSD?)
• Is TRIM enabled? (this probably would have limited-to-minimal impact here, but it should benefit this particular drive quite a bit)
• Are any startup/login processes being loaded from any of the launchd folders?
• Is FileVault enabled? (if so, has the encryption process completed?)
• Are any mdworker/mds processes running to indicate the drive is still being indexed?

-It is actually a 128 GB model.
-Yes it is timed from the moment I press power button until the home screen appears (Automatic Login is enabled)
-Yep, completely fresh, just installed it on SSD using an Mac OS Sierra image on USB drive I downloaded previously.
-About TRIM, well I really don't know anything about that . I'll try googling it until your response.
-I guess not since it is a completely clean install, though again not exactly sure about that.
-No, FileVault is not enabled.
-

[doublepost=1505395439][/doublepost]

Don't forget the possibility of a failing hard drive cable.

A fresh install of Sierra on my early 2011 13" has a boot time of roughly 10 seconds from pushing the power button to when I have to enter my password. Trim is enabled, no programs loading at start up, no encryption.

Huh, that's just lighting fast . If it's the cable, I guess that's replaceable, right ?

 

[Audit13]

Yes, the hard drive cable is easily replaced.

I had a 2010 13" and my friend had a 2009 15". Both machines would sometimes fail to recognise the boot drive, take a long time before the apple logo appears, beach ball effect. Swapped out the cable in both machines and everything is great.

Apparently, the hard drive cables are prone to failure in Macbooks from 2009 to 2012.

 

[walt disney]

Yes, the hard drive cable is easily replaced.

I had a 2010 13" and my friend had a 2009 15". Both machines would sometimes fail to recognise the boot drive, take a long time before the apple logo appears, beach ball effect. Swapped out the cable in both machines and everything is great.

Apparently, the hard drive cables are prone to failure in Macbooks from 2009 to 2012.

I see. However in my case the amount of time prior to the appearance of the OS loading bar (Apple logo) isn't really long, as I said around 3 seconds after the startup tune is heard, so I suppose the trouble wouldn't be with the cable ?
[doublepost=1505398125][/doublepost]--Update--
So after enabling TRIM, boot time has been reduced . In total now it amounts around 19-20 seconds, the time in-between when I press the power button and the Apple logo appears is around 5 seconds it seems, so the actual loading of the OS takes around 15 seconds. Here is a video of how the boot process looks

. This is great since it got 5-10 seconds faster, is there anything more I could do to give it a boost to the 10 seconds time Audit13 mentioned his MBP has?

 

[Fishrrman]

OP wrote:
"When it comes to boot time, it amounts to somewhere between 25-30 seconds, now this is fast enough for me but I noticed that most people report boot times of up to 15 seconds after SSD upgrade. So I am curious about this, I checked the start up disk option and it seems okay, there's only 3 seconds delay before the apple logo appears."

Nothing's wrong.

You should go to "startup disk" in System Preferences and be sure that the new drive is selected to be the boot drive.

That's about it. Enjoy the new SSD.

 

[Audit13]

I'm not 100% sure that it's the cable, it was just a thought. Link speed okay?

 

[walt disney]

I'm not 100% sure that it's the cable, it was just a thought. Link speed okay?

Yeah it's cool, I am just trying to eliminate issues . Here's the speed you asked for

[doublepost=1505402681][/doublepost]

OP wrote:
"When it comes to boot time, it amounts to somewhere between 25-30 seconds, now this is fast enough for me but I noticed that most people report boot times of up to 15 seconds after SSD upgrade. So I am curious about this, I checked the start up disk option and it seems okay, there's only 3 seconds delay before the apple logo appears."

Nothing's wrong.

You should go to "startup disk" in System Preferences and be sure that the new drive is selected to be the boot drive.

That's about it. Enjoy the new SSD.

Fishrrman, I have actually done that before posting, and I even put up a screenshot of startup options in later reply. Here it is again for conveinence

 

[PBG4 Dude]

Smaller (128GB) drives have slower read/write speeds than 256GB and up. This is due to how the drive's firmware distributes data writes in order to evenly wear the NAND chips. Larger drives are easier for the firmware to work with since there is much more NAND to spread the data across.

 

[Audit13]

I'm using a Kingston hyperx mlc 128 gb drive in my early 2011 13" and it takes about 10 seconds from power on to the login screen.