Speed up Boot times.

G a f f e r

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So I just installed an SSD into my mbp and even though it was VERY snappy when launching programs, I felt boot times could be improved by clearing out some of the junk being loaded for no reason when the OS started up.

VMWare Fusion:
This program is great, but it does a very bad windows-like thing imo. It decides to launch 4 Kernel Extensions and 6 more daemons when the OS starts up. This is even if you never launch VMWare...it just has been implemented such that these will always run, sucking the life out of any hope for a fast boot up :(.
Fortunately, I found this post here in which someone with more knowledge than me has altered it's behaviour to now not have these 10 things start up on boot, but to only have them start up on VMWare launch, and shutdown again on VMWare exit (which is what the app should've done in the first place :nono:).
Now for those of you who don't use VMWare Fusion all the time (like me), follow his instructions to the letter and it will work like a charm.

I have also removed VMWare Helper from the startup items (all it does is launch the menubar item I think).

Neither of these things is detrimental to VMWare itself, which still launches and runs fine, but without cluttering up any boot-up or start-up sequences.

Have a delve into some files:
You may find more than a few items in these folders that are unneeded, possible carryovers from previous system migrations, possible crusts from printer installs, external hard drive installers (HP and Seagate especially) etc etc.

/Library/LaunchAgents/ Per-user agents provided by the administrator.
/Library/LaunchDaemons/ System-wide daemons provided by the administrator.
/Library/StartupItems/ System-wide startup items provided by the administrator.
~/Library/LaunchAgents/ Per-user agents provided by the user.
~/Library/StartupItems/ Per-user startup items (folder may not have been created if none present).

I myself found lots of junk because I have gone from 10.1 - 10.2 - Tiger - Snow Leopard - Lion and with each migration, no longer needed daemons and kernels were still getting loaded on..... e.g. old adobe licensors and the newest adobe.switchboard.junk which is completely unnecessary to run Photoshop CS6 :mad:.

Old app stuff lurking about?
Won't alter boot times but worth a spring clean - after uninstalling old progs, make sure their preferences are also deleted from
/Library/Application Support
~/Library/Application Support





My boot time has now been cut down to 1/2 what it was previously :D and it didn't cost me a thing.





P.S. The above also applies to anything else you want to simply spring clean (e.g. Quicktime had about 20 plugins in it's startup folder /Library/QuickTime/ which were pretty much all made obselete by perian.component so I'm now down to only 7 in there (still might delete some old 2009 EVO and MTM components to make that 5)).
 
I have 3 external drives hooked up to my SSD equipped mac mini and boy does that slow down boot time, it's lightening fast when they are not connected.
 
I presume you did go into system Preferences and make the SSD as the startup disk?

I didn't do this when I installed mine and couldn't understand why boot times hadn't improved.
 
^^^ Yep, did that, but still had poor times. I also noticed that when anything is changed, startups are a bit slower - it's the subsequent startups that are faster.
Total startup time is now 30s (from pressing button to being able to use the desktop) and shutdown 3s :).
 
ATM my Macbook has a 250GB SATA Drive. How much would i be looking for in a SSD equivalent? Is it going sort the slowdown and spinning load icons of software or is that a RAM thing?

When i got my Macbook in 2008 i did max at 4GB which i still think is probably enough. I don't use iMovie much anymore but it's more iPhoto, pages.
 
ATM my Macbook has a 250GB SATA Drive. How much would i be looking for in a SSD equivalent? Is it going sort the slowdown and spinning load icons of software or is that a RAM thing?

When i got my Macbook in 2008 i did max at 4GB which i still think is probably enough. I don't use iMovie much anymore but it's more iPhoto, pages.

Application launch speed and the ability to leave more application simultaneously open is relative to RAM and not the HD.

Launch Activity Monitor (located in your Utilities folder) and use this to determine how much of your 4GB of rAM is being used up before the OS has to resort to vitual memory. If you are getting page outs and no physical RAM at your disposal then you need more RAM. HD drive speeds would only be applicable if the the physical RAM was exhausted and the OS had resorted to using HD space as virtual RAM. HD memory is still slower than physical RAM so it is better to get more physical RAM than a faster HD.

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Luckily RAM is pretty cheap right now, especially when compared to the price of SSD drives.
 
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Why this obsession with boot times? We never power off our Macs as unlike Windows PCs they always properly wake up from sleep mode fully functional & waking from sleep is far quicker then even the fastest boot from SSD.
 
Why this obsession with boot times? We never power off our Macs as unlike Windows PCs they always properly wake up from sleep mode fully functional & waking from sleep is far quicker then even the fastest boot from SSD.

Might be true of iMacs but MBP's tend to get powered-off!
 
Might be true of iMacs but MBP's tend to get powered-off!
Mine doesn't. I just close the lid & it goes to sleep. Why would I waste my time closing it down & then waiting for it to POST & boot up when I wanted to use it again. It uses so little of the battery in sleep mode (3-4% per 24 hours) that you can leave it for weeks & it will still just wake up when you open the lid again.
 
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My MBP,is also,constantly on,I think ive powered it right off,about 5times!!
Waking from sleep is nearly instant,depends how slow I type the password!!

If I'm not converting a film or two,I'm downloading something,or it's on for iTunes sharing.
When I do finally sort what needed to be sorted,it's just lid down.

Just a quickly,....the power lead,should it be in all the time,or should I take it out everyday,and use the battery ,I thought it would be ok to leave it in,but it still uses up the recharge figures.
 
Mine doesn't. I just close the lid & it goes to sleep. Why would I waste my time closing it down & then waiting for it to POST & boot up when I wanted to use it again. It uses so little of the battery in sleep mode (3-4% per 24 hours) that you can leave it for weeks & it will still just wake up when you open the lid again.

Good point! To be honest, since I got an iPad I can go weeks without using my MBP so I just switch it off.

I tend to keep my MBP in an Incase sleeve when not in use, so although it uses very little power in sleep mode, I figured it probably wasn't a good idea to keep it in a well-line sleeve.
 
I never power down my MacBook either. Last time was when I installed mountain lion. Just close the lid and let it sleep. The disk encryption makes it start up slightly slower but still fast enough.
 
I'm just lazy and leave all my lights on :D

I don't think it really matters whether you shutdown your Mac or not, it takes next to no time to boot back up again. You'd have to be really impatient for this to be a problem, either this or you've a really old Mac?
 
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I'm just lazy and leave all my lights on :D

I don't think it really matters whether you shutdown your Mac or not, it takes next to no time to boot back up again. You'd have to be really impatient for this to be a problem, either this or you've a really old Mac?
You are forgetting about the time that it takes to shutdown which is likely much longer than the boot time even without an SSD.
 
You are forgetting about the time that it takes to shutdown which is likely much longer than the boot time even without an SSD.

Not really. I just execute shut down and press return. I've already left the room and on my way to whatever else I'm doing by the time it shuts down. Don't tell me you sit there watching your Mac shut down?

The Mac stays on all day, but gets shut down when I do :)

You can run cron scripts manually so this isn't an issue either ;)
 
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I tend to allways shut down my MBP , i guess its an old windows habit, only been using mac product for 9 months.

No harm can be caused by just closing the lid on the mbp then and leaving it sit there until i need it next..?
 
I tend to allways shut down my MBP , i guess its an old windows habit, only been using mac product for 9 months.

No harm can be caused by just closing the lid on the mbp then and leaving it sit there until i need it next..?


No harm done, but you may want to use OnyX or a similar utility to run the cron scripts. These are scheduled maintenance routine that came as part of the UNIX core of OS X. They run in the small hours daily, weekly and monthly. If you shutdown your Mac then it is unlikely that these routines are being run, but you can run them manually. You can safely go for many months without need of the scripts, but it is an idea to run them from time to time ;)

http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/maintscripts.html
 
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thanks for the info and advice there:smashin:

i will download the app/utility and run the program..
 
Not really. I just execute shut down and press return. I've already left the room and on my way to whatever else I'm doing by the time it shuts down. Don't tell me you sit there watching your Mac shut down?
You are discounting the time to exit individual applications or at least save your work otherwise when you return to the room you would find a message that xxxxx had cancelled shutdown.
 
You are discounting the time to exit individual applications or at least save your work otherwise when you return to the room you would find a message that xxxxx had cancelled shutdown.

You do not need to quit or exit applications. you can even choose to have open applications launch into their prior state again once you boot OS X Lion back up again. What exactly do you assume I've got running that would stop me from shutting my Mac down? I'm obviously not shutting my mac down if performing a task I wish to be completed, so no, I do not come back in the Morning to find my Mac still awake displaying a warning. :nono:

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You can also quickly shut down your Mac without seeing the warning dialog, by holding down the ‘Option' key while selecting “Shut Down” from the Apple Menu. This will cause the system to shutdown without the dialog box coming up to verify your shutdown/restart plans. There's no warning, and your apps will immediately begin to quit.

To make things even faster for shutting down, just hold ctrl+option+command+eject for about 1.5s. No warning is given with this combo either.
 
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Anyway, as I've already suggested, there's no right or wrongs to this and you can weigh up the pros and cons here:

Is It Better to Shut Down, Sleep, or Leave a Mac Turned On When Not Being Used?

In brief:

Sleeping a Mac
• Pros: Quickly resume exactly where you left off; sleep and wake can be scheduled or even done remotely
• Cons: Minor power consumption; system temp, swap, and cache files don't get cleared out during reboot process; system updates requiring reboots don't install automatically without a manual reboot; performance is best for Macs with 4GB RAM or more

Shutting the Mac Down
• Pros: Saves power, doesn't strain hardware; system temp, memory, swap, and cache files get cleared out during boot; allows for major system updates to install
• Cons: Takes a while to boot up and resume previous activity, no geeky uptime bragging rights

Keeping a Mac Always Turned On
• Pros: No waiting for use; instantly resume all apps and tasks exactly where you left off; allows for servers to run with constant accessibility; backup and system maintenance tasks can be scheduled for off hours
• Cons: Constant power consumption; more wear and tear on hard drives, fans, and physical hardware due to possible heat
 
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You do not need to quit or exit applications. you can even choose to have open applications launch into their prior state again once you boot OS X Lion back up again. What exactly do you assume I've got running that would stop me from shutting my Mac down? I'm obviously not shutting my mac down if performing a task I wish to be completed, so no, I do not come back in the Morning to find my Mac still awake displaying a warning. :nono:

image



You can also quickly shut down your Mac without seeing the warning dialog, by holding down the ‘Option’ key while selecting “Shut Down” from the Apple Menu. This will cause the system to shutdown without the dialog box coming up to verify your shutdown/restart plans. There’s no warning, and your apps will immediately begin to quit.

To make things even faster for shutting down, just hold ctrl+option+command+eject for about 1.5s. No warning is given with this combo either.
That's not the warning that I am referring to & "Control Option-Command-Eject" is "Quit all applications (after giving you a chance to save changes to open documents), then shut down the computer" so if you have open documents with unsaved changes you will be delayed while you decide whether you want to save the changes or not. Just shut the lid & Textedit etc will be sitting there just as you left them the next time that you open the lid.
 
That's not the warning that I am referring to & "Control Option-Command-Eject" is "Quit all applications (after giving you a chance to save changes to open documents), then shut down the computer" so if you have open documents with unsaved changes you will be delayed while you decide whether you want to save the changes or not. Just shut the lid & Textedit etc will be sitting there just as you left them the next time that you open the lid.


Again, I don't appear to be experiencing the "major" drawback you so kindly suggested I am experiencing. Maybe I'm proficient enough not to leave unsaved work laying around whilly nilly? I tend to save documents when I've finished with them and then close them. Am I abnormal in my behaviour and should I not be saving changes to documents and should I be leaving all these documents unsaved and open permanently? I think it bad practice not to save work and close down documents as you go along even if leaving your Mac awake. The cat might sneak in and edit your work while you are asleep. They do this all the time! :lesson:
 
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Another thing, just to test what you've said …

I just opened a new TextEDit document, typed something randomly onto the page and then without quiting TextEdit or saving the document I shut my Mac down without selecting the "reopen windows when logging back in" option and without any dialogue boxes appearing. I Rebooted the Mac. No apps were running or launched, but when TextEdit was launched the document I'd never bothered to save opened and when Safari was launched it reopened the very same page where I'd left it.

Shutdown took less than 15 seconds and start up doidn't take much longer.

It took me longer to type this post and post it than it took me to shut down and restart my Mac.

What OS are you using, OS 9? I miss watching all those extensions loading :(
 
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PS. where's the lid on an iMac? :confused:

Should I get some curtains for it?
 

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