Short boot times and Apple Silicon

[Bodhitree]

I have to say, one of the most transformative things of my 24" iMac has been the short boot time. My older Macs and before that PCs all had significantly longer boot times, from about 25-30 seconds and longer. The habit was always to switch the machine on and go make tea, and by the time you came back with your tea you'd be at the login screen, and then after logging in it would take another 5-10 seconds to initialise the environment.

With my M1 iMac, all that time has just disappeared, its now just 5 seconds from boot to login. I barely have time to settle in my chair and the machine is ready to go. And that initialisation time is down to 1-2 seconds, almost unnoticeable.

It changes the way you use your computer. I find myself switching the computer on more often, in situations where before I might have used my phone. Shopping for instance, if I go exploring online I can do that on my phone but its very much nicer to do it on the big screen of the iMac, but for the sake of convenience I did it on my phone. Now its much easier for casual computing tasks to switch the computer on, it reduces the friction in the interaction.

 

[3Rock]

Yep, this has been known since a year ago with the new M1 chip.

 

[Feyl]

Yep, this has been known since a year ago with the new M1 chip.

My M1 Mac mini is definitely not that fast. I mean, it's not slow by any means but it's not even close to the times that OP is talking about.

 

[Gnattu]

My M1 Macs, both the Mac Mini and the MacBook Pro, boot slower than my PCs. I really don't think that is the advantage of Apple Silicon and, CPU architecture should not be evaluated by boot time.

 

[Bodhitree]

My M1 Macs, both the Mac Mini and the MacBook Pro, boot slower than my PCs. I really don't think that is the advantage of Apple Silicon and, CPU architecture should not be evaluated by boot time.

I think it should, and apparently Steve Jobs agreed with me. To the question of what direction the Mac should take, he once showed an iPad switching on, and he said, make this (pointing to a Mac), do that (pointing to the iPad).

Its about the overall computing experience, the friction that’s involved in doing the actual creative work we do. Every time the computer makes something difficult for you, it gets you out of the flow of being productive, and it’s the designers task to make that experience as smooth as it can be.

 

[NotTooLate]

Are you actually shutting down your machine that often ? I am just putting it to sleep , the M1`s barely use any power @ idle , never knew it was a thing, maybe I am doing it wrong !!!

 

[leman]

Boot times with M1 are generally slower than Windows with their caches boot enabled. But wake from sleep is instant.

 

[Bodhitree]

Boot times with M1 are generally slower than Windows with their caches boot enabled. But wake from sleep is instant.

Of course if you have a fast enough processor even a boot process that isn't streamlined can be made quick. But even the difference between 7 seconds and 2 seconds is worthwhile to pursue, it's about the threshold of being fast enough to feel as if it operates without a significant delay.

 

[Gnattu]

if you have a fast enough processor even a boot process that isn't streamlined can be made quick

No, the boot speed nowadays is actually more software related than hardware related.

 

[Bodhitree]

No, the boot speed nowadays is actually more software related than hardware related.

Do you have a source for this?

 

[thenewperson]

I think it should, and apparently Steve Jobs agreed with me. To the question of what direction the Mac should take, he once showed an iPad switching on, and he said, make this (pointing to a Mac), do that (pointing to the iPad).

That was waking from sleep, not boot time. If Steve was that interested in boot time iOS wouldn't have been so hilariously slow at it back then (or now).

 

[Gnattu]

Do you have a source for this?

Look at how Intel optimize boot time for Windows 7 10 years ago in this slide: https://www.intel.com/content/dam/doc/guide/uefi-fast-boot-windows-7.pdf

Pure software(at pre-OS firmware level) technique, and Microsoft is doing more with Windows 10 that they don't have to initialize the kernel from scratch when fast startup is enabled. These don't require you to have a powerful processor and/or a super fast SSD to benefit from them.

To add to that, lots of embedded devices with a quite weak CPU(and a super slow flash) boots much quicker than your Mac. This is not an apple-to-apple comparison, but it shows the fact that the boot-up time heavily depends on what software you are starting. We will boot faster when we load less, and modern systems' boot-up optimization is usually doing this for you.

 

[BeefCake 15]

Look at how Intel optimize boot time for Windows 7 10 years ago in this slide: https://www.intel.com/content/dam/doc/guide/uefi-fast-boot-windows-7.pdf

Pure software(at pre-OS firmware level) technique, and Microsoft is doing more with Windows 10 that they don't have to initialize the kernel from scratch when fast startup is enabled. These don't require you to have a powerful processor and/or a super fast SSD to benefit from them.

To add to that, lots of embedded devices with a quite weak CPU(and a super slow flash) boots much quicker than your Mac. This is not an apple-to-apple comparison, but it shows the fact that the boot-up time heavily depends on what software you are starting. We will boot faster when we load less, and modern systems' boot-up optimization is usually doing this for you.

Windows has a penalty with performance that increases with how long you have it on, I have to shut down at least once a week so things don't go haywire. I restart my Mac once or twice a year if that...

 

[casperes1996]

I haven't had my iMac turned off for 45 days right now. I only ever reboot it when I need to for an update or when I switch to Bootcamp-Windows.
But I'm sorry you miss out on tea

 

[mo5214]

My C2D 15” 2008 unibody coldbooted in 5 seconds flat on Snow Leopard with a 840 pro SSD. Nothing that came after (running newer OS) ever topped that (at least 10s)

Im not counting windows, because their “fast startup” is cheating (sign out user sessions + hibernate)

 

[apparatchik]

My C2D 15” 2008 unibody coldbooted in 5 seconds flat on Snow Leopard with a 840 pro SSD. Nothing that came after (running newer OS) ever topped that (at least 10s)

Im not counting windows, because their “fast startup” is cheating (sign out user sessions + hibernate)

Exactly, Windows is not really faster if you do an actual cold boot, they’re just doing sleep to disk or “hibernate” instead of the sleep to RAM.

 

[leman]

Of course if you have a fast enough processor even a boot process that isn't streamlined can be made quick. But even the difference between 7 seconds and 2 seconds is worthwhile to pursue, it's about the threshold of being fast enough to feel as if it operates without a significant delay.

Boot speed has very little to do with the sped of the processor. Testing and pre-configuring various hardware devices can take some time, it's not something you can accelerate with faster processor or memory. Windows "cheats" here by hibernating instead of truly shutting down, so they don't have to do all the device configuration stuff. MacOS does not include such optimizations because modern Macs are designed to sleep and not to be turned off.

 

[MauiPa]

Of course if you have a fast enough processor even a boot process that isn't streamlined can be made quick. But even the difference between 7 seconds and 2 seconds is worthwhile to pursue, it's about the threshold of being fast enough to feel as if it operates without a significant delay.

Only windows users would care - booting 3 or 4 times a day (or did they fix that since I used windows). I barely ever shutdown my Mac, so boot times, meh! Instant open on sleep, that is what I get

 

[jwolf6589]

I have to say, one of the most transformative things of my 24" iMac has been the short boot time. My older Macs and before that PCs all had significantly longer boot times, from about 25-30 seconds and longer. The habit was always to switch the machine on and go make tea, and by the time you came back with your tea you'd be at the login screen, and then after logging in it would take another 5-10 seconds to initialise the environment.

With my M1 iMac, all that time has just disappeared, its now just 5 seconds from boot to login. I barely have time to settle in my chair and the machine is ready to go. And that initialisation time is down to 1-2 seconds, almost unnoticeable.

It changes the way you use your computer. I find myself switching the computer on more often, in situations where before I might have used my phone. Shopping for instance, if I go exploring online I can do that on my phone but its very much nicer to do it on the big screen of the iMac, but for the sake of convenience I did it on my phone. Now its much easier for casual computing tasks to switch the computer on, it reduces the friction in the interaction.

Excellent points. I am still on a intel Mac. My intel Mac is much much faster than my old 2012 MBP with a spinning hard drive.

 

[TiggrToo]

I think it should, and apparently Steve Jobs agreed with me.

No, you apparently agree with him (if what you say is correct).

 

[NewUsername]

I have to say, one of the most transformative things of my 24" iMac has been the short boot time. My older Macs and before that PCs all had significantly longer boot times, from about 25-30 seconds and longer. The habit was always to switch the machine on and go make tea, and by the time you came back with your tea you'd be at the login screen, and then after logging in it would take another 5-10 seconds to initialise the environment.

With my M1 iMac, all that time has just disappeared, its now just 5 seconds from boot to login. I barely have time to settle in my chair and the machine is ready to go. And that initialisation time is down to 1-2 seconds, almost unnoticeable.

It changes the way you use your computer. I find myself switching the computer on more often, in situations where before I might have used my phone. Shopping for instance, if I go exploring online I can do that on my phone but its very much nicer to do it on the big screen of the iMac, but for the sake of convenience I did it on my phone. Now its much easier for casual computing tasks to switch the computer on, it reduces the friction in the interaction.

I actually have the opposite experience: it seems to me boot times didn’t really improve at all in the last ten years. I never timed the boot times, but in my memory my 2011 MacBook Air had about the same boot time in 2011 as my M1 MacBook Air has at this moment.

 

[bobcomer]

Windows has a penalty with performance that increases with how long you have it on, I have to shut down at least once a week so things don't go haywire. I restart my Mac once or twice a year if that...

Once a week for shutting down Windows hasn't been typical for quite some time. I very rarely reboot either my Macs or my Windows PC's for anything other than updates. I've had more crashes with my M1 MBA though...(V1 hardware, not unexpected)

 

[chengengaun]

I think it should, and apparently Steve Jobs agreed with me. To the question of what direction the Mac should take, he once showed an iPad switching on, and he said, make this (pointing to a Mac), do that (pointing to the iPad).

Actually Steve Jobs referred to iPad's ability to wake up instantly, not boot up. (See footnote #3.) Nonetheless I agree that friction should not stand in the way of work and flow state.

 

[bobcomer]

Boot speed has very little to do with the sped of the processor. Testing and pre-configuring various hardware devices can take some time, it's not something you can accelerate with faster processor or memory. Windows "cheats" here by hibernating instead of truly shutting down, so they don't have to do all the device configuration stuff. MacOS does not include such optimizations because modern Macs are designed to sleep and not to be turned off.

Agree, but a lot of people turn off fast boot because it causes more problems that it solves.

I wish Mac's handled USB devices during sleep better. Under Monterey my M1 MBA doesn't wake up USB devices about half the time when waking from sleep. It got so annoying I turned off sleep. Hopefully an update will fix that!

Ironically, or not so ironically, turning off fast bot in Windows cures the same kind of problems with external devices. It's always a driver problem...

 

[bobcomer]

Only windows users would care - booting 3 or 4 times a day (or did they fix that since I used windows). I barely ever shutdown my Mac, so boot times, meh! Instant open on sleep, that is what I get

Boot 3 to 4 times a day, LOL! You must have last used Windows in the early Windows 3.1 days.