Migrating from a 3,1 to 5,1...slower startup with SSD

[kemijo]

Hi all,

I am migrating from an Early 2008 Mac Pro 3,1 with a Crucial BX500 SSD startup disk to a 4,1 flashed to a 5,1 Mac Pro with a Crucial MX500 startup disk. I am installing everything fresh on the new machine instead of restoring. Right away I noticed that the startup time for the 5,1 with MX500 was much, much slower than the 3,1 with the BX500.

Anyone have any idea why this is? I thought maybe it was the non-EFI GPU but I am pretty sure it was slower when I still had the stock GT-120 installed.

Specs for each machine:

Early 2008 Mac Pro (3,1)
2.8Ghz 8 core (dual CPU)
24 GB Ram 800Mhz DDR2 FB-DIMM
ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024 MB
Crucial BX500 SSD
Third Party Wireless Card, Transmit Rate: 216
Running El Capitan 10.11.6


Early 2009 Mac Pro (4,1 flashed to 5,1)
3.46 6 core (single CPU)
32 GB 1333Mhz DDR3
Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX580 8192 MB
Crucial MX500 SSD
Airport Extreme (0x14E4, 0x8E), Transmit Rate: 300
Running High Sierra 10.13.6


Thanks for any insight!

 

[hknatm]

Trim enabled on ssd?

 

[kohlson]

This all depends on how you measure - from what point to what point. But note that more memory extends the overall time from using the button to login screen. More specifically, from power on to the POST chime, where things like CPU, memory, and GPU are validated. I measure my 4/5.1 as about 40 seconds from POST to login.

 

[h9826790]

Hi all,

I am migrating from an Early 2008 Mac Pro 3,1 with a Crucial BX500 SSD startup disk to a 4,1 flashed to a 5,1 Mac Pro with a Crucial MX500 startup disk. I am installing everything fresh on the new machine instead of restoring. Right away I noticed that the startup time for the 5,1 with MX500 was much, much slower than the 3,1 with the BX500.

Anyone have any idea why this is? I thought maybe it was the non-EFI GPU but I am pretty sure it was slower when I still had the stock GT-120 installed.

Specs for each machine:

Early 2008 Mac Pro (3,1)
2.8Ghz 8 core (dual CPU)
24 GB Ram 800Mhz DDR2 FB-DIMM
ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024 MB
Crucial BX500 SSD
Third Party Wireless Card, Transmit Rate: 216
Running El Capitan 10.11.6


Early 2009 Mac Pro (4,1 flashed to 5,1)
3.46 6 core (single CPU)
32 GB 1333Mhz DDR3
Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX580 8192 MB
Crucial MX500 SSD
Airport Extreme (0x14E4, 0x8E), Transmit Rate: 300
Running High Sierra 10.13.6


Thanks for any insight!

May be you hit the slow boot bug of "APFS + TRIM enabled"

If slightly slower, that may be just because more hardware on the 4,1 to initialise (e.g. more RAM). But if much much slower, most likely you hit the bug.

You may clone the OS back to HFS+, or simply disable TRIM to see if that make significant difference.

 

[kemijo]

Thanks so much for the replies!

Trim enabled on ssd?

I had no idea about TRIM however it was not on. I've turned it on now though as several other sites say I should for longevity and performance.

This all depends on how you measure ... I measure my 4/5.1 as about 40 seconds from POST to login.

From pressing the power button to login screen, The 3,1 makes it in under 30 seconds. The 5,1 takes about 1 minute 11 seconds. Fair point about the RAM though, I will test again at some point from POST chime to login and see if its closer.

May be you hit the slow boot bug of "APFS + TRIM enabled"

I had neither TRIM enabled nor am I using APFS (I cloned an existing fresh install to a new SSD formatted to HFS+ Journaled). I have enabled TRIM but I'll wait on the APFS for awhile. But thanks for the heads up regarding slowdown using both, I'll look into it.

Thanks for info everyone!

 

[amedias]

Hi all,

Early 2008 Mac Pro (3,1)
...
Running El Capitan 10.11.6


Early 2009 Mac Pro (4,1 flashed to 5,1)
...
Running High Sierra 10.13.6

You're not comparing like for like in terms of OS, I'd not be surprised if that's the cause.
Have you compared the 5,1 booting El Cap? you could just fit the drive from the 3,1 and see