The Restart Race

Sorry if this has been done before.

Lets play the restart race.

You need to get a stop watch [I use my iPhone] and start it once you click on 'restart'.

Time it until your Mac reboots and stop it once your time/clock is displayed on the top left toolbar.

Post your results here along with your Mac's spec.


On a cloned 320GB drive my Mac was taking 1min 32 secs.

After I ran 'archive and install' I got it down to:-

36.2 secs.

MacBook Pro 2009 13" 2.26Ghz
320GB Seagate Momentus 5400rpm
4GB Ram

I have a password on my computer so it cant play now booooo.

Disable it just for this test!

You know you have too much time when you spend it clocking how fast your computer restarts.

I agree there!

However I developed a fault after my HDD upgrade where the restart/boot times were really bad due to SuperDuper not using the same structure as my existing disk on a clone. So I fixed it and timed it. I just thought it would be interesting to see how it fared.

Before my HD upgrade, i.e. when I had the 120GB 5400RPM at about 95% full, it took my MacBook 54 seconds. Now, with my Seagate 500GB 7200RPM (this disk was restored via Time Machine backup), it took about 33 seconds. Very satisfied with my new drive. Next up, more RAM! haha

Oh, and these times were determined without any apps running, i.e. I quit all apps before clicking restart, leaving only Finder (obviously).

BlueMac said:

You know you have too much time when you spend it clocking how fast your computer restarts.

Click to expand...

Or how slow!!

2009 MBP 13''
2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB 1067 MHz DDR3
Only ram is upgraded. Everything else is stock.

i clocked 1min 10secs. Real slow IMO. Power was plugged in (does it make a difference?)

chrismac, how did you get it down to 30+ secs? how do i do 'archive and install?

okay i found out wad archive install is. looks too technical to me, (not very tech savvy)

anw i downloaded onyx and did some maintenance and cleaning up. cut my reboot time by 13secs. its not 57secs.

but 30+ secs is real quick

Archive and install is so easy, any newbie can do it.

Boot up holding c
select install, but in the options select archive and install.
Make sure you select users and network
The wizard does the rest.

Well worth it.

58 seconds here. Does having a lot of startup items make it this slow?

What exactly is archive and install? Nothing happens when I hold down C during reboot.

Archive and install is an installation option when reinstalling OS X. I think chrismac was talking about reinstalling OS X off of a backup drive.
Holding down the "C" key tells the computer to boot from a CD, btw.

Hey guys don't get confused. You would only need to run a 'archive and install' for reboot time improvement if you are using a cloned HD. This is because SuperDuper does not clone the bootup exactly the same as your original HD, which means that it takes a lot longer to boot.

The only way to fix this is to do a A&I.

You will need your install disks for this.

nictan said:

2009 MBP 13''
2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB 1067 MHz DDR3
Only ram is upgraded. Everything else is stock.

i clocked 1min 10secs. Real slow IMO.

Click to expand...

I agree, yours should've dwarfed mine in time, but mine was faster even with the old 5400RPM drive. Are you running any applications when you click restart? Like my times are based on having all applications quit prior, leaving only Finder running.

So having login items start automatically decreases the boot time? If that's the case, then maybe a minute to boot isn't so slow, if you have a lot of startup apps.

Why would you need to regularly or constantly restart a Mac anyway?
Leave it on... at the very least just let it sleep when you're not using it.

I agree, and that's what I do, but would a slow boot mean that something is wrong?

chrismac said:

Hey guys don't get confused. You would only need to run a 'archive and install' for reboot time improvement if you are using a cloned HD. This is because SuperDuper does not clone the bootup exactly the same as your original HD, which means that it takes a lot longer to boot.

The only way to fix this is to do a A&I.

You will need your install disks for this.

Click to expand...

i dont understand. what is a cloned HD? sorry just switched to MAC. dunno much about mac technical stuff

GK27V6 said:

I agree, yours should've dwarfed mine in time, but mine was faster even with the old 5400RPM drive. Are you running any applications when you click restart? Like my times are based on having all applications quit prior, leaving only Finder running.

Click to expand...

i quit all with only finder running too, but i have safari, adium, quicksilver and gimmesometune as login items.

the time is now officially around 57 secs. I WANNA GET IT DOWN TO 30+!!!

49 second reboot time here. Running on a 17" 3.06 ghz MBP. 500 GB 7200 rpm HD, 4 GB ram.

Nice job on getting down to 30 seconds.

D3v1L80Y said:

Why would you need to regularly or constantly restart a Mac anyway?
Leave it on... at the very least just let it sleep when you're not using it.

Click to expand...

I was just about to say, how often do you really need to restart a Mac for this to even be an issue? I'm looking at the uptime counter on my Mac and it has been 21 days since my last restart, and I remember that was for a plethora of updates. Last time before that was probably when 10.5.6 came out.

i shut down and boot my mac everyday. i hardly ever use sleep unless it just for a short duration. doesnt sleep drain more power compared to shut down?