Achieving Lightning Fast Boot Times

[AOD_Anvil]

Hi folks,
When I first installed Windows 10 Pro on my 400GB SSD, my boot up time was about 30 seconds from the time I hit the power button until the time I was fully loaded at desktop. Over the years since I've done that, my startup time has creeped up to around the minute mark. I want to bring that back down, and have read about a number of ways to achieve that. Before I attempt anything I want to crosscheck with your expertise to see what has worked for you / what you would recommend.

Any thoughts?


Here's my specs:
Operating System: Windows 10 Pro 64bit
Case: Thermaltake Element V Case
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 980 @ 3.33GHz (12 CPUs), ~3.3GHz
Memory: 24GB DDR3
DirectX Version: DirectX 12
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070
400GB SSD
2TB HDD
2x 500GB HDD in RAID
PSU: 750W

[KaosC57]

The way you lower your Boot Times with an SSD is that you remove files from it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q15wN8JC2L4&t Here's a video that can help explain why this is the case.

[AOD_Anvil]

The way you lower your Boot Times with an SSD is that you remove files from it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q15wN8JC2L4&t Here's a video that can help explain why this is the case.

His voice is hard to listen to, but he actually managed to take something complex and break it down well. That's awesome. Thanks for sharing.

[KaosC57]

His voice is hard to listen to, but he actually managed to take something complex and break it down well. That's awesome. Thanks for sharing.

No problem! Linus is partially Canadian, so I can understand why, but also not at the same time...

[MightyDWC]

My question is how old is the SSD, and is it a 3gbs or 6gbs?. I still have one of the first 6gbs SSD's to come out made by Crucial, 120 gig. It's 6 years old, and my boot times to desktop were 8-9 seconds before I put in a Samsung 850 pro 512gb as my primary. That hard drive is almost 3 years old, and even with just 50 gigs free, it still boots to desktop in 6-7 seconds.
30 seconds just seems ALONG time for an SSD, do you have fast boot enabled on the mobo?

[sNaKe]

I'll check it out but this guy is amazing on anything he explains.

[Darkn3ss F4lls]

Have you made sure your running slim processes at start? could be the ammount of data your trying to access at start. For example if a process is on one of your hard discs.

[AshxAffliction]

My PNY CS1311 240GB drive manages to boot into windows in under 15 seconds, even with only a few gigs free; I'm not sure why your boot is so slow. It could be that you have a lot of programs loading on startup. Some of them may not be on the SSD and are being slowly loaded off of the HDD instead. Does your motherboard have SATA 3 3Gb/s or does it use SATA 3 6Gb/s? It may even be due to the sheer number of hard drives you have; see how long it takes to boot with only the SSD connected.

[effectiv]

The way you lower your Boot Times with an SSD is that you remove files from it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q15wN8JC2L4&t Here's a video that can help explain why this is the case.

This explains SSD overprovisioning, not boot times. Overprovisioning is already accounted for when the SSD is made. This is why he started the video explaining why SSD's have weird sizes, like 480GB. Overprovisioning combats SSD's slowing down with more data on them. It HELPS SSD's perform better. This is why the technology was made. He literally says this in his video. This may affect older SSD's that don't have Overprovisioning, however. My fiancee has a 64gb that is straight garbage from like 2012-2013 without overprovisioning and it's on it's last legs. It USED to be ok, and it makes no difference what I delete from it.

Anvil,

If you're on Windows 10, go to Task Manager > Startup. Windows will try to measure what programs have "x" impact on your bootup performance. Although, I don't trust this. I try to disable anything that I can enable myself when Windows boots. My computer is always sitting on the homescreen around 10-15s after boot, and has been performing that way since I bought it 4 years ago. That's with it only having ~10-15GB free now. My guess is something in your startup is taking a long time to load, and if you haven't cleaned anything up in a while, this is where I'd start.

If you want to go through some things 1 on 1, I'm usually on Teamspeak every day. I can help go through your startup and help you determine what you can shut off completely through screenshots if you'd prefer.

There's also a ton of other stuff I can help you optimize but it'd be much faster to just talk you through it or let me do it over Teamviewer.

[AOD_Anvil]

My question is how old is the SSD, and is it a 3gbs or 6gbs?. I still have one of the first 6gbs SSD's to come out made by Crucial, 120 gig. It's 6 years old, and my boot times to desktop were 8-9 seconds before I put in a Samsung 850 pro 512gb as my primary. That hard drive is almost 3 years old, and even with just 50 gigs free, it still boots to desktop in 6-7 seconds.
30 seconds just seems ALONG time for an SSD, do you have fast boot enabled on the mobo?

SSD is under 2yrs, not sure on 3GBS or 6GBS. How do I check please? Not sure if I have fast boot enabled. That's in the BIOS right?

My PNY CS1311 240GB drive manages to boot into windows in under 15 seconds, even with only a few gigs free; I'm not sure why your boot is so slow. It could be that you have a lot of programs loading on startup. Some of them may not be on the SSD and are being slowly loaded off of the HDD instead. Does your motherboard have SATA 3 3Gb/s or does it use SATA 3 6Gb/s? It may even be due to the sheer number of hard drives you have; see how long it takes to boot with only the SSD connected.

I'm pretty sure it has SATA 3 6Gb/s, not positive on that though.

Good test, Ill try it and see.

[AOD_Anvil]

Have you made sure your running slim processes at start? could be the ammount of data your trying to access at start. For example if a process is on one of your hard discs.

That's a very valid point. I try to dump everyone onto my 2TB data drive but if the SSD has to wait for data to be read from the slower HDD because something is trying to startup it could really slow it down. I'll have to mess around with the configuration for that. Thanks!

Anvil,

If you're on Windows 10, go to Task Manager > Startup. Windows will try to measure what programs have "x" impact on your bootup performance. Although, I don't trust this. I try to disable anything that I can enable myself when Windows boots. My computer is always sitting on the homescreen around 10-15s after boot, and has been performing that way since I bought it 4 years ago. That's with it only having ~10-15GB free now. My guess is something in your startup is taking a long time to load, and if you haven't cleaned anything up in a while, this is where I'd start.

If you want to go through some things 1 on 1, I'm usually on Teamspeak every day. I can help go through your startup and help you determine what you can shut off completely through screenshots if you'd prefer.

There's also a ton of other stuff I can help you optimize but it'd be much faster to just talk you through it or let me do it over Teamviewer.

That would be awesome! I'll see if I can sync up with you at some point this week :)