Slow shutdown on SSD vs. HD model?

[jbarnhardt]

Hi. I was playing around with both the SSD and HD Macbook Air models in my local Apple store yesterday and noticed a very significant difference in shutdown times. I tried two different machines of each type to make sure it wasn't just some config thing. What I saw, repeatedly, was HD shutdown times (from selection of "Shutdown" to screen black) of less than 10 seconds, and SSD shutdown times of 35-40 seconds. Based on benchmarks I've seen so far, the SSD is slower in some write operations, but not (in benchmarks) 4 times slower. If this only affects shutdown times it's not very important to me, but if it truly indicates that large a difference in write times, the SSD is looking significantly less attractive.

I have two questions for the community at large:

1) Have others observed this discrepancy? Do people with SSD Airs see 35+ second shutdown times regularly?

2) Any speculation as to what might cause this given that benchmarks don't show SSD to be 4x slower on writes? Is there something (cleanup? cache flush?) that SSDs have to do when shutting down that regular spinning platter HDs don't have to do? I'm not aware of anything like that.

Thanks all for any feedback you may have.

-John

 

[diabolic]

I just tried it twice on my 1.8/SSD.

First shutdown, 10 seconds from clicking Shut Down.

Then I booted it again. I immediately shut down, and it took 3 seconds to turn off.

EDIT: I don't know what they have installed on the systems in the stores. I did a complete clean re-install and left out the optional apps, printer drivers and languages. I ended up with 46.05 GB free.

 

[jbarnhardt]

Good to hear...

Thanks Diabolic, that's certainly more like what I would have expected. Appreciate the feedback.

-John

 

[Consultant]

I just tried it twice on my 1.8/SSD.

First shutdown, 10 seconds from clicking Shut Down.

Then I booted it again. I immediately shut down, and it took 3 seconds to turn off.

EDIT: I don't know what they have installed on the systems in the stores. I did a complete clean re-install and left out the optional apps, printer drivers and languages. I ended up with 46.05 GB free.

I was told by the store employee that they've installed security software which extends startup / shutdown times.

 

[jbarnhardt]

I was told by the store employee that they've installed security software which extends startup / shutdown times.

That would make sense, but then why the difference between SSD and non-SSD times? Maybe the software writes a bunch of crap out at shutdown?

-John

 

[da5idj]

Slow shutdown fixed!!!

Greetings all.

I think I solved a little mystery with the MBA and the slow shutdown.

If you have looked at the HDD vs SDD speeds, the sequential writes for SSD is not very quick. Well when you go to put it to sleep or shut down, it's writing out the RAM to the sleepsafe file, which is a 2GB file which is most likely a large sequential file.

I happened upon this as I was trying to clear up every scrap of disk space that I could on my SSD and someone showed me this link
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20070302210328928

After I did this, I went to shut down and it took just 1-2 seconds. I showed it to a colleague and we did a bit of testing and indeed sleeping, restarting, and shutting down now is so quick that you almost miss it if you blink.

Hope that helps others!
Da5idj

 

[Santa Rosa]

Mine is slow to shutdown after a period of use with the SSD. To be honest though when it was going through the shutdown stages couldn't I just close the lid anyway and it would shut down and that would be that instead of having to wait for it to finish?? Just curious!!

 

[Sesshi]

It could also be an OS / app issue. My Pros have a tendency to 'circle' for a long time on shutdown, my new 17" MBP also does so at times (or hangs up altogether) and sometimes the Air does so too.

 

[Santa Rosa]

Never noticed it on the pro though. I'm thinking a SSD problem within OSX or what has already been discussed which seems extremely plausible.

 

[aussieinrome]

Shutdown times.

My SSD shutdown is instant, I mean 2 or 3 seconds max, and my boot time is just insane - 20 seconds or so. Wow!

 

[Santa Rosa]

Been playing around with mine. Noticed that if I reset Safari before I shut down it takes like 2 seconds. I am really confused now as to what was or is doing this, other than that it seems to be going ok so I will just leave it be.