When my Mac boots up for the first time it is sluggish until all my apps are launched and everything goes into RAM does it speed up. I have a MacBook Pro 2012 model with 8GB's of RAM. I have 160GB's free and probably the culprit is the 5400 RPM hard drive. I have Tech Tools Pro 9 do you think this can solve this problem? What can I try to speed things up or would the fix be installing a much faster hard drive? I mean once the apps get loaded into RAM does the Mac speed up.
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Slow Mac on boot up
- Thread starter jwolf6589
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OP wrote:
"I have a MacBook Pro 2012 model with 8GB's of RAM. I have 160GB's free and probably the culprit is the 5400 RPM hard drive."
Put an SSD into it.
It's very easy, and will literally "change your world".
Be sure to use the right tools (Phillips #00 driver and TORX T-6)
Go to ifixit.com to see what's involved.
Also -- get an external 2.5" USB3 enclosure for the old HDD.
Use the enclosure to "prep and test" the SSD BEFORE you put it into the MBPro.
Much easier process this way.
The quickest procedure is to use CarbonCopyCloner to clone from the HDD to the SSD. CCC will also clone over the recovery partition, as well.
CCC is FREE to download and use for 30 days.
Another suggestion:
DON'T set up the MacBook so that "all your apps" open upon bootup.
Just open apps as you need them, close them when you're done.
I'd recommend that you AVOID Samsung SSDs, and use either a Crucial or Sandisk Plus drive. My opinion only.
"I have a MacBook Pro 2012 model with 8GB's of RAM. I have 160GB's free and probably the culprit is the 5400 RPM hard drive."
Put an SSD into it.
It's very easy, and will literally "change your world".
Be sure to use the right tools (Phillips #00 driver and TORX T-6)
Go to ifixit.com to see what's involved.
Also -- get an external 2.5" USB3 enclosure for the old HDD.
Use the enclosure to "prep and test" the SSD BEFORE you put it into the MBPro.
Much easier process this way.
The quickest procedure is to use CarbonCopyCloner to clone from the HDD to the SSD. CCC will also clone over the recovery partition, as well.
CCC is FREE to download and use for 30 days.
Another suggestion:
DON'T set up the MacBook so that "all your apps" open upon bootup.
Just open apps as you need them, close them when you're done.
I'd recommend that you AVOID Samsung SSDs, and use either a Crucial or Sandisk Plus drive. My opinion only.
This may be what needs to be done. Can I backup to Time Machine and then restore to the SSD?
"Can I backup to Time Machine and then restore to the SSD?"
I recommend CCC instead.
Do it this way:
1. Once you have the SSD and USB enclosure, put the SSD into the enclosure (temporarily)
2. Connect to MacBook and use Disk Utility to initialize the SSD to HFS+ with journaling enabled
3. Launch CCC. On the left, select your source (HDD). To the right, select the target (SSD). Set CCC popup to "delete anything that doesn't exist on the source" (nothing there anyway).
4. Also set CCC prefs to clone recovery partition.
5. Let CCC do its thing.
After CCC is done, do a "test boot" to the SSD while still in the external enclosure:
1. Power down, ALL THE WAY OFF
2. Press the power on button and hold down the option key until the startup manager appears
3. Select the SSD in the enclosure and hit return
4. It should boot up. When you get to the finder, use "About this Mac" (apple menu) to verify that you did boot from the SSD (it will look EXACTLY as it did before)
If that goes well, now is time to power down and "do the drive swap".
I recommend CCC instead.
Do it this way:
1. Once you have the SSD and USB enclosure, put the SSD into the enclosure (temporarily)
2. Connect to MacBook and use Disk Utility to initialize the SSD to HFS+ with journaling enabled
3. Launch CCC. On the left, select your source (HDD). To the right, select the target (SSD). Set CCC popup to "delete anything that doesn't exist on the source" (nothing there anyway).
4. Also set CCC prefs to clone recovery partition.
5. Let CCC do its thing.
After CCC is done, do a "test boot" to the SSD while still in the external enclosure:
1. Power down, ALL THE WAY OFF
2. Press the power on button and hold down the option key until the startup manager appears
3. Select the SSD in the enclosure and hit return
4. It should boot up. When you get to the finder, use "About this Mac" (apple menu) to verify that you did boot from the SSD (it will look EXACTLY as it did before)
If that goes well, now is time to power down and "do the drive swap".
Hang on --
Before doing a drive swap, I'll offer that your 2012 model could be just like my 2012, and it's suffering from a bad flex cable connecting to the drive.
Apple replaced mine free of charge just a couple weeks ago. It's a known issue, and they're covering it out of warranty.
[adding on]
I'd contact Apple first. If they offer to fix the cable, then that's cool.
If you decide to swap to an SSD soon, then you'll have a fresh, Apple-installed cable.
About backing up & restoring --
When they fixed mine, they also replaced the HD because it was failing (which I had known a couple months ago). I paid for the HD alone; Apple covered covered the flex cable and all labor for the repair.
When I got it back, it was like a totally fresh computer. Because I had successfully done a Time Machine backup two nights prior, I just let Migration Assistant restore everything. The next morning, it was all set, like nothing ever went wrong.
Before doing a drive swap, I'll offer that your 2012 model could be just like my 2012, and it's suffering from a bad flex cable connecting to the drive.
Apple replaced mine free of charge just a couple weeks ago. It's a known issue, and they're covering it out of warranty.
[adding on]
I'd contact Apple first. If they offer to fix the cable, then that's cool.
If you decide to swap to an SSD soon, then you'll have a fresh, Apple-installed cable.
About backing up & restoring --
When they fixed mine, they also replaced the HD because it was failing (which I had known a couple months ago). I paid for the HD alone; Apple covered covered the flex cable and all labor for the repair.
When I got it back, it was like a totally fresh computer. Because I had successfully done a Time Machine backup two nights prior, I just let Migration Assistant restore everything. The next morning, it was all set, like nothing ever went wrong.
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