Slow boot

[Doc69]

The following process give my back a startup time of 17 sec. from 1:20 sec. with the same software setup:

1. Copy MacOS with Carbon Copy Cloner to external HD with HFS
2. Delete APFS containers and filesystem compledly
3. Reformat internal SSD with HFS
4. Restore MacOS with Carbon Copy Cloner
5. Active File Vault 2
6. Convert Filessystem from HFS to APFS

Bootuptime after that process back to 17 sec.

The boot time for my 2010 Mac Pro with a Samsung EVO SSD has also increased from around 18s on Sierra to around a minute on High Sierra (High Sierra made the computer slower in general, and iTunes in particular). I'm thinking about following your instructions above to fix the problem. However, I have two APFS partitions with MacOS installed on my Mac Pro. They were converted from HFS to APFS individually when upgrading to High Sierra. Do I need to clone both? I would prefer to do a clean HFS install on the second partition after I have copied the clone of my main system back to the reformatted internal SSD with HFS. And then converting both to APFS afterwards. But as I understand it, a clean install will default to APFS, with no way to choose between APFS and HFS? Is that correct? And if the second partition is converted from HFS to APFS at the time of installing the OS, while the main partition is still HFS, i.e. converting only part of the SSD to APFS, could it affect the performance of the main installation? I assume that each partition would be in its own APFS container as I have now?

Any thoughts on why converting HFS to APFS at a later time than at the time of the upgrade would make this difference?

On a side note, I have a 17" 2011 MacBook Pro, also with an internal Samsung EVO SSD. On this Mac I did three clean installations of High Sierra on three different partitions within one APFS container. On this computer I don't have any issues at all, albeit I don't have nearly as much stuff installed on that machine as on the Mac Pro (which has 5 internal drives).

 

[F1Mac]

I finally move back to HFS+, and I am very happy with the result.

I have a daily bootable CCC clone of my primary boot drive. So I boot to the clone, format the SSD back to HFS+, and clone everything back.

The result is good, no more slow boot, TRIM is working properly, no Finder micro freeze (so far), I can easily go back to macOS in Bootcamp Windows, and the system can always report correct space available now.

I tried APFS since 10.13.0, doesn't really like it. And can't see much benefit for far. So, most likely I will stay at HFS+ until Apple force to "upgrade".

Good to know tx. Do your apps take the same time launch as in Sierra? For instance, in my case Pro Tools took 14-15 bounces to launch on HS (with APFS), whereas it’s 8 max on Sierra (yeah yeah I counted them ). If there’s no difference I may try HS again on HFS+
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But as I understand it, a clean install will default to APFS, with no way to choose between APFS and HFS? Is that correct?

No, you can force it to install on HFS+ via the terminal, such as

"/Applications/Install macOS High Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/startosinstall" --volume /Volumes/name_of_your_partition --converttoapfs NO

...path may vary depending on the installer’s location.

 

[h9826790]

Good to know tx. Do your apps take the same time launch as in Sierra? For instance, in my case Pro Tools took 14-15 bounces to launch on HS (with APFS), whereas it’s 8 max on Sierra (yeah yeah I counted them ). If there’s no difference I may try HS again on HFS+
[doublepost=1516879726][/doublepost]

No, you can force it to install on HFS+ via the terminal, such as

"/Applications/Install macOS High Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/startosinstall" --volume /Volumes/name_of_your_partition --converttoapfs NO

...path may vary depending on the installer’s location.

I didn’t really meassure it, but the feeling to load FCPX, Photoshop, etc take roughly the same time (1TB 840 Evo on a Tempo SSD card).

The overall feeling is more smooth. However, due to it’s a newly recovered partition, all files are in good order and no fragmentation. It may actually reduce the OS’s workload to read files. Therefore, I won’t conclude that HFS+ is a faster file system (if compare to APFS).
(Lots of users believe fragmentation is not an issue for SSD. This is technically correct at the hardware level. However, fragmentation is still an issue at the OS level. e.g. a single large files with no fragmentation. The OS only need to make one call to read the file. But if it's broken into 100 pieces, the OS will need to make 100 calls to completely read the same single file. Which will actually make the whole process longer, and require more CPU resources to compete)

But something like "checking SSD space remaining", HFS+ is definitely much more faster and accurate than APFS. The number's in "about this Mac" won't randomly change, and no need to wait few minutes for the OS to work out the actual space left.

 

[Doc69]

No, you can force it to install on HFS+ via the terminal, such as

"/Applications/Install macOS High Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/startosinstall" --volume /Volumes/name_of_your_partition --converttoapfs NO

...path may vary depending on the installer’s location.

Thanks. I just wiped my internal SSD and made two new HFS+ partitions while booted from an external clone. Now I want to make a clean install of 10.13 on one of the partitions. I ran your command above, after replacing "name_of_your_partition" with the name of the partition, but nothing happened when I hit enter.

/Applications/Install macOS High Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/startosinstall" --volume /Volumes/System --converttoapfs NO

Then I found an article with this command:
/Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/startosinstall --converttoapfs NO

And I tried your command again but with the "\"-signs in between the spaces in the installation file name. I remember from another time that I had to do this when file names contained spaces. But nothing happened here either (the High Sierra installation file is located in the Applications folder, and my 2nd partition is called 'System').

/Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/startosinstall" --volume /Volumes/System --converttoapfs NO

Any ideas? Should I perhaps run the terminal command in recovery mode or from a thumb drive instead of from a cloned external drive? I'm sort of stuck now since I need to install this first before I can clone back the main partition.

 

[h9826790]

Thanks. I just wiped my internal SSD and made two new HFS+ partitions while booted from an external clone. Now I want to make a clean install of 10.13 on one of the partitions. I ran your command above, after replacing "name_of_your_partition" with the name of the partition, but nothing happened when I hit enter.

/Applications/Install macOS High Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/startosinstall" --volume /Volumes/System --converttoapfs NO

Then I found an article with this command:
/Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/startosinstall --converttoapfs NO

And I tried your command again but with the "\"-signs in between the spaces in the installation file name. I remember from another time that I had to do this when file names contained spaces. But nothing happened here either (the High Sierra installation file is located in the Applications folder, and my 2nd partition is called 'System').

/Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/startosinstall" --volume /Volumes/System --converttoapfs NO

Any ideas? Should I perhaps run the terminal command in recovery mode or from a thumb drive instead of from a cloned external drive? I'm sort of stuck now since I need to install this first before I can clone back the main partition.

Try take out the "

/Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/startosinstall" --volume /Volumes/System --converttoapfs NO

make it

/Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/startosinstall --volume /Volumes/System --converttoapfs NO

Or add another one to make it

"/Applications/Install macOS High Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/startosinstall" --volume /Volumes/System --converttoapfs NO

 

[Doc69]

Try take out the "
make it
/Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/startosinstall --volume /Volumes/System --converttoapfs NO

Thanks! I did not see the extra "...

However, this did not work either. But the text below got displayed in the Terminal window. I'm running it from my main installation and not from the recovery OS, if that matters.

Mac-Pro:~ xxxxxx$ /Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/startosinstall --volume /Volumes/System --converttoapfs NO

Usage: startosinstall

Arguments
--applicationpath, a path to copy of the OS installer application to start the install with.
--license, prints the user license agreement only.
--agreetolicense, agree to license the license you printed with --license.
--rebootdelay, how long to delay the reboot at the end of preparing. This delay is in seconds and has a maximum of 300 (5 minutes).
--pidtosignal, Specify a PID to which to send SIGUSR1 upon completion of the prepare phase. To bypass "rebootdelay" send SIGUSR1 back to startosinstall.
--converttoapfs, specify either YES or NO on if you wish to convert to APFS.
--installpackage, the path of a package to install after the OS installation is complete; this option can be specified multiple times.
--usage, prints this message.

Example: startosinstall --converttoapfs YES

 

[h9826790]

Thanks! I did not see the extra "...

However, this did not work either. But the text below got displayed in the Terminal window. I'm running it from my main installation and not from the recovery OS, if that matters.

Mac-Pro:~ xxxxxx$ /Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/startosinstall --volume /Volumes/System --converttoapfs NO

Usage: startosinstall

Arguments
--applicationpath, a path to copy of the OS installer application to start the install with.
--license, prints the user license agreement only.
--agreetolicense, agree to license the license you printed with --license.
--rebootdelay, how long to delay the reboot at the end of preparing. This delay is in seconds and has a maximum of 300 (5 minutes).
--pidtosignal, Specify a PID to which to send SIGUSR1 upon completion of the prepare phase. To bypass "rebootdelay" send SIGUSR1 back to startosinstall.
--converttoapfs, specify either YES or NO on if you wish to convert to APFS.
--installpackage, the path of a package to install after the OS installation is complete; this option can be specified multiple times.
--usage, prints this message.

Example: startosinstall --converttoapfs YES

May be simplify to

/Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/startosinstall --converttoapfs NO

However, I never do this, not sure if it will install the OS to your primary boot driver straight away. I you don't want that, you better run it on a test drive (if you have). Or at least have a full backup for you to restore.

 

[Doc69]

May be simplify to

/Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/startosinstall --converttoapfs NO

However, I never do this, not sure if it will install the OS to your primary boot driver straight away. I you don't want that, you better run it on a test drive (if you have). Or at least have a full backup for you to restore.

Thank you for all your help! I've already cloned back the primary OS and I have no way to test. What if I install Sierra first on the 2nd partition and then boot up from there to run the command? Could the command above still install 10.13 on my primary partition even though I run it from the 2nd?

 

[h9826790]

Thank you for all your help! I've already cloned back the primary OS and I have no way to test. What if I install Sierra first on the 2nd partition and then boot up from there to run the command? Could the command above still install 10.13 on my primary partition even though I run it from the 2nd?

Should upgrade your current boot partition, but not your primary partition (the computer has no idea what's your primary partition anyway).

 

[Fishrrman]

Doc69 wrote:
"Any ideas? Should I perhaps run the terminal command in recovery mode or from a thumb drive instead of from a cloned external drive? I'm sort of stuck now since I need to install this first before I can clone back the main partition."

My advice would be to ERASE the internal drive to ONE partition (HFS).
Leave the drive (single partition) name something simple ("untitled" ?)
Try it that way.

IF you "get a good install", do any partitioning of the drive after you get the OS installed and set up.

 

[Doc69]

Should upgrade your current boot partition, but not your primary partition (the computer has no idea what's your primary partition anyway).

I ended up installing Sierra on the 2nd partition from a flash drive (Sierra installer won't run under High Sierra), and then used the "/Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/startosinstall --converttoapfs NO" command to upgrade to High Sierra without converting to APFS. That worked. Thanks!

 

[shafez]

I found that restoring a High Sierra TM using the Sierra recovery will not convert the partition to APFs and also will disable conversion in Disk Utility, Steps are as follow:

- Make a Time machine backup on High Sierra.
- Boot Sierra Installer from USB drive.
- Erase the disk or the partition as HFS Extended Journaled.
- Restore your Highs terra TM.

I hope this help and consume time and efforts.

Regards

 

[h9826790]

I found that restoring a High Sierra TM using the Sierra recovery will not convert the partition to APFs and also will disable conversion in Disk Utility, Steps are as follow:

- Make a Time machine backup on High Sierra.
- Boot Sierra Installer from USB drive.
- Erase the disk or the partition as HFS Extended Journaled.
- Restore your Highs terra TM.

I hope this help and consume time and efforts.

Regards

I am sure it can work, but using clone should be faster, and virtually no down time.

Carbon Copy Cloner has free trial period. Use it to clone the current OS to another drive. Then boot from it and format the original one back to HFS+. Then clone it back. Done!

This should be much faster than Time machine.

 

[devinw]

Late 2015 MBP 15" with stock 256 SSD

After my High Sierra update boot went from ~15 seconds to about 40-50!

Just read through the thread and ran the terminal command to make sure TRIM is on, and let apple install the latest HS update (10.13.3 (17D47)) and I just timed my boot at 23 seconds. I guess I'm gonna just take that as a win for now seeing has how slow some of the other people's boots are.

 

[Marcopolo53]

You may notice there may have been an EFI ROM update too. My 12 inch Retina MacBook received one. As for boot up times, congratulations. Mine too is much faster.

 

[Guyfromtheswamp]

Same thing as many have said here, but on my 2017 iMac (replaced the spinning portion of the fusion drive with a 2tb SATA ssd). Converting back to HFS+ shortened boot time to 25 seconds from above 50.

One thing I did notice, which I want to see if others experience with the 2017 iMac: It takes about 13 seconds BEFORE the apple logo shows up. From there, it's about another 12 seconds.

Om my 2015 MacBook Pro 13 inch, the apple logo appears after about 5 seconds, but still takes about a total of 26 seconds to get to desktop.

So KEY question here: What are people measuring boot time from? The time they push the power button, or the time the apple logo appears?

 

[h9826790]

Same thing as many have said here, but on my 2017 iMac (replaced the spinning portion of the fusion drive with a 2tb SATA ssd). Converting back to HFS+ shortened boot time to 25 seconds from above 50.

One thing I did notice, which I want to see if others experience with the 2017 iMac: It takes about 13 seconds BEFORE the apple logo shows up. From there, it's about another 12 seconds.

Om my 2015 MacBook Pro 13 inch, the apple logo appears after about 5 seconds, but still takes about a total of 26 seconds to get to desktop.

So KEY question here: What are people measuring boot time from? The time they push the power button, or the time the apple logo appears?

If your 2017 iMac has more RAM, it will take longer to POST, that’s normal.

For me, I always count from pressing the power button.

 

[sinbad21]

Same thing as many have said here, but on my 2017 iMac (replaced the spinning portion of the fusion drive with a 2tb SATA ssd). Converting back to HFS+ shortened boot time to 25 seconds from above 50.

One thing I did notice, which I want to see if others experience with the 2017 iMac: It takes about 13 seconds BEFORE the apple logo shows up. From there, it's about another 12 seconds.

Om my 2015 MacBook Pro 13 inch, the apple logo appears after about 5 seconds, but still takes about a total of 26 seconds to get to desktop.

So KEY question here: What are people measuring boot time from? The time they push the power button, or the time the apple logo appears?

I count from the startup chime. Sometimes when you press the power button the sound doesn’t come immediately because there is a check of the RAM every n boots, so it is better to start the chrono from the chime. It takes for me about 42 seconds to boot.

 

[Guyfromtheswamp]

I count from the startup chime. Sometimes when you press the power button the sound doesn’t come immediately because there is a check of the RAM every n boots, so it is better to start the chrono from the chime. It takes for me about 42 seconds to boot.

Not very helpful on a 2017 iMac that doesn't have a startup chime. That's why I suggest people measure from first push of the button. And let's face it, the time you have to wait for the 'chime' is also part of the real world time you have to wait before you can get to the desktop and start using your computer.

 

[F1Mac]

Why isn't there ANY official word on this issue?

Just a quick google search shows that it's not an isolated problem.

 

[devinw]

Same thing as many have said here, but on my 2017 iMac (replaced the spinning portion of the fusion drive with a 2tb SATA ssd). Converting back to HFS+ shortened boot time to 25 seconds from above 50.

One thing I did notice, which I want to see if others experience with the 2017 iMac: It takes about 13 seconds BEFORE the apple logo shows up. From there, it's about another 12 seconds.

Om my 2015 MacBook Pro 13 inch, the apple logo appears after about 5 seconds, but still takes about a total of 26 seconds to get to desktop.

So KEY question here: What are people measuring boot time from? The time they push the power button, or the time the apple logo appears?

Hi Guyfromtheswamp. I'm measuring from the time of hitting the button. I did notice that after the High Sierra update, there is a time from when you hit the button to when you see the Apple logo that is a lot longer than pre-high sierra. When I bought the machine, it was almost instantaneous. Now the screen is black about 5 seconds, then the screen kind of glitches out and then it shows the apple logo. :-(
[doublepost=1520357569][/doublepost]

Why isn't there ANY official word on this issue?

Just a quick google search shows that it's not an isolated problem.

Because Apple doesn't give AF anymore.

 

[Marcopolo53]

Running Late 2016 Retina MacBook m5 - 8 GB RAM and 512GB SSD with Erase and Clean Install 10.13.3 upgraded with 10.13.3 Supplemental - TRIM enabled.
Power Button to Desktop took 34 seconds.
Will test Late 2012 iMac with rotational 1 TB - 8 GB RAM also Erase and Clean Install 10.13.3 upgraded with 10.13.3 Supplemental and report back but seems like 55 seconds

 

[Guyfromtheswamp]

Here's my experience. High Sierra actually boots faster than Sierra (with an SSD) as long as you have it formatted in HFS+.

So in that regard, High Sierra does live up to it's promise of faster boot times. Trouble is, Apple forces APFS down our throats, and converting back to HFS+ is no easy task.

The way I did it: Install High Sierra, back it up using Carbon Copy Cloner, then wipe the internal SSD and format it as HFS+. Then use Carbon Copy Cloner to reinstall all my stuff onto the internal SSD and voila! The internal SSD is on High Sierra and formatted with HFS+

 

[Almostar]

The following process give my back a startup time of 17 sec. from 1:20 sec. with the same software setup:

1. Copy MacOS with Carbon Copy Cloner to external HD with HFS
2. Delete APFS containers and filesystem compledly
3. Reformat internal SSD with HFS
4. Restore MacOS with Carbon Copy Cloner
5. Active File Vault 2
6. Convert Filessystem from HFS to APFS

Bootuptime after that process back to 17 sec.

Great post. Thanks Rheid, this worked for me. back on 17 sec's bootup time from pressing the button (from 45-50 sec's). One question though: Convert to APFS is greyed out in disktool. I didn't activate the file vault, is this the reason??

 

[Guyfromtheswamp]

Great post. Thanks Rheid, this worked for me. back on 17 sec's bootup time from pressing the button (from 45-50 sec's). One question though: Convert to APFS is greyed out in disktool. I didn't activate the file vault, is this the reason??

Yep. It was the same thing I said worked too. So where’s my gold star?