Very slow os startup on an ssd drive

Question

Level 1

6 points

Very slow os startup on an ssd drive

I just installed a 256gb ssd drive (from OWC) into my 2007 Santa Rosa 2.4 core 2 duo 17" macbook pro.

I had done a clone from my old hard drive (7200rpm 320gb) while it was still in the mbp to the ssd drive in an external enclosure using Superduper.

It all worked correctly and then I replaced the mbp hard drive with the new ssd drive already installed with my cloned system and the computer worked normally, except for a very slow start time.

From the moment of pressing the on button to the screen with the apple is 35-40 seconds every time. It goes from off to the gray screen almost immediately but it stays there a long time before changing to the screen with the apple.
This is significantly longer than it was before.

I did all of the usual stuff like repairing permissions and running Onyx to clean out any possible conflicts, but the condition persists.

Once up and running, programs are loading about 3 times faster and everything is great, but I suspect that there must be some glitch at the very startup with the programming expecting something and having to find a replacement.

Would resetting the pram or something be useful?
Should I look for some firmware solution?

I am loathe to wipe the hard drive clean and start from scratch since some of my programs take hours to install.

Thanks for any advice.

MBP 2.4ghz 4gb ram and Mac Pro 2.8 8 core 16 GB ram, Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Jul 27, 2010 11:28 AM

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Answer 1

tjk

Level 9

51,116 points

Jul 27, 2010 12:00 PM in response to Luis Ortega

Hi Luis,

A PRAM reset certainly wouldn't hurt anything. Also look in Sys Pref Accounts to see if anything is loading at startup. And look in Sys Prefs Network to see if it's looking for networks that you don't use.

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Answer 2

JavaJ

Level 1

60 points

Jul 27, 2010 1:33 PM in response to Luis Ortega

Maybe try doing a fresh install on the new SSD first- and see if there is possible an OS/HW issue using the SSD. If it runs smokin fast- then you at least know that it is your clone that is causing the issue. I personally would just start fresh when it comes to something that core- but then again, I come from the PC world and sneezing would be cause enough to do a complete fresh install (and the fact that I like reading all the great promises Microsoft makes during their install process- just to realize it is all lies!)
But that is just me.

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Answer 3

RN Paris

Level 1

20 points

Jul 27, 2010 3:51 PM in response to JavaJ

Luis, I have the exact same problem with my new MBP 15" which I ordered from Apple with the 256 SSD option. Initial start up time was great, but I'm now at 1:10 which is grim. I've done the PRAM, used Oryx, done permissions after a 'C' start using an install disk, and spoke to an Apple Genius about the problem. I have nothing left to logon at startup, I've cleared everything and all to no avail... what can it be? I haven't had the courage to do a full fresh install, but even if I did, I guess things would slow again as soon as I added programmes. Once up and running all is well - this is purely a start up issue.

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Answer 4

Luis Ortega Author

Level 1

6 points

Jul 28, 2010 7:12 AM in response to RN Paris

I did a couple of things and it improved, but I'm not sure if there's more.
I reset the pram and the smt? and that cut down the off to seeing the apple startup time from 45 sec. down to 14 sec.
The spinning wheel goes around 3 to 4 times and then it goes to the desktop and is ready to use by 25 sec. which is also shorter than the previous startup time.
The startup of programs is very fast compared to the 7200 rpm hard drive.
Could the name of the boot drive cause any issues?
I renamed the ssd from the default Macintosh HD to Mac HD to avoid getting confused, but could it be slowing things down and could it be changed to the old default name?

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Answer 5

ajsuk

Level 1

0 points

Jul 28, 2010 8:41 AM in response to Luis Ortega

Have you checked Startup Disk on the System Preferences window?
If your SSD drive isn't named as your startup disk your Mac will take longer to boot.
Click on the drives name then restart and see if it makes a difference.

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Answer 6

Luis Ortega Author

Level 1

6 points

Jul 28, 2010 9:46 AM in response to ajsuk

Yes, I did that, thanks.

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Answer 7

gbullman

Level 2

316 points

Jul 28, 2010 10:39 AM in response to Luis Ortega

Did you ever go into Startup Disk System Preference and explicitly select that disk? Any time you mess with the internal drive that is a good idea. I have seen cases where the machine would search for drives before settling on the only valid boot drive available.

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Answer 8

tjk

Level 9

51,116 points

Jul 28, 2010 11:35 AM in response to Luis Ortega

Luis Ortega wrote:
Could the name of the boot drive cause any issues?
I renamed the ssd from the default Macintosh HD to Mac HD to avoid getting confused, but could it be slowing things down

That is not an issue.

and could it be changed to the old default name?

Yes.

You might also want to try my earlier suggestions.

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Answer 9

Luis Ortega Author

Level 1

6 points

Jul 29, 2010 1:38 AM in response to tjk

Thanks, I did try your suggestions.
The only thing in the startup disk list is the osx on the new ssd disk and an icon for network startup.

The only thing that is now different is that on my old 7200rpm drive I had two partitions and had my osx on one and a windows vista on the other installed with Bootcamp.

After I cloned my osx partition to the new ssd and it worked, I then replaced the old drive with the ssd, but I decided not to partition it and install windows with bootcamp because it's a smaller drive than the old 7200 and I don't have the space to devote to it on the ssd.

Could the osx that was cloned to the ssd still be expecting to select between the osx partition and the bootcamp partition and it hangs a little on startup as it looks for it?

There is definitely nothing on the startup disk list in system preferences but the osx on the ssd and the network startup icons, but perhaps there is some glitch because now there is no windows partition on bootcamp?

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Answer 10

Ge64

Level 1

35 points

Jul 29, 2010 6:44 AM in response to Luis Ortega

Where in the boot process does it appear to take the most time now? How much free space do you have?

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Answer 11

Luis Ortega Author

Level 1

6 points

Jul 29, 2010 7:11 AM in response to Ge64

From the moment I press the on button to the moment I see the apple seems to take longer than normal. Everything after that takes shorter time now.

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Answer 12

Jul 30, 2010 7:26 PM in response to Luis Ortega

I just installed an OWC ssd in my new MacBook 17 inch i5 and experienced the slow boot time. After the boot, everything was much faster.

I saw the post above about startup disk and check the system prefs and it showed the ssd and something called network. I selected the ssd as the start up disk and now it boots much faster - just like what I was looking for.

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Answer 13

ant4xx

Level 1

0 points

Jul 31, 2010 7:54 AM in response to Luis Ortega

i'm having a similar problem. i have a 64gb SSD. ocz 275mb write and 285read version!!

it's so so slow on mac os x. i tried updating the firmware. and a fresh install. tried everything nothings working.

i'm feeling this is more of a problem on apples side. not us.

hmmm....

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Answer 14

ajsuk

Level 1

0 points

Jul 31, 2010 9:01 AM in response to ant4xx

I fitted an intel value drive in my 2007 macbook, 170MB/s read and 1.5 Gb/s bus, about 4 months ago and from pressing the power button it takes about 6 seconds to get to the apple logo and is ready to go in about 19 seconds.

If you have a faster mac and ssd, have followed all the advice above, and are getting significantly slower times I think the problem may be a faulty drive.

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Answer 15

hasole

Level 1

5 points

Aug 9, 2010 8:19 PM in response to ajsuk

ajsuk: what are you benchmarking in? That must be the limit of sata1. nice 🙂

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