how fast will your intel mac boot

jay

ive seen some take quite awhile but i recently aquired a mini and in approximately 6 seconds im up and running

rosselliot

yeah, mine takes no time at all. it's quite amazing. in about 16 seconds, I can be up and running and listening to a song in iTunes and checking my email...how do they do it! what are windows users thinking?!?!?!?

- RE

Andy

jay wrote:

ive seen some take quite awhile but i recently aquired a mini and in approximately 6 seconds im up and running

Boot?

My Mac Pro is rarely off.

But when I do boot it, it's pretty darn fast

rosselliot

Andy wrote:

Boot?

My Mac Pro is rarely off.

But when I do boot it, it's pretty darn fast

this is very true, mine is almost always on sleep. but I have shut it down....um....twice? I think...to hear the little chime...:) it was SPEEDY!

- RE

wxwax

The Macbook takes about 20-25 seconds.

One caveat: I haven't added many programs to it. My XP box used to boot almost instantly, until I started adding programs, many of which were added to the start list, which slowed the start process dramatically.

I don't yet know if the same will happen to the Mac.

colourbox

It depends on what you mean by "start."

There is the first stage of startup where the kernel extensions get loaded up to the login screen. Then there is the second stage of startup, where the user-specific login items that load between the login screen and the desktop, which you control in the Login Items in your Accounts preferences pane. If you have more of either, you will lengthen your system-to-login time or login-to-desktop time. If you use auto login, it goes straight from the first to the second stage.

But Apple also cuts down the startup time through caching. You will probably notice a longer startup time after installing a fresh system or system update. This is I think because the startup caches have not been built or they need to be rebuilt. My PowerBook can take up to 2-5 minutes to reach the desktop after a system update, but in normal daily use when the caches are in place, it's about 35 seconds to the desktop (My Mac Pro does 16 seconds). Well, for the 3 or 4 times I actually bother to restart over the course of a month, anyway!

If you want to skip loading extra stuff at either stage, hold down the Shift key at the appropriate time, and startup is way faster. I think that's the Mac's "Safe Mode."