Q:

Quick OSX startup

I am totally new to OSX so sorry for this beginners question.
If I would like to reduce the startup time (from being completely without power to being able to use Safari) of a new (HDD only, no SSD) iMac as much as possible what do I need to do? Does using hibernation or something help ? What would that time approximately be? By how much could I improve this time if the iMac had an SSD?
UPDATE:
To make my question more clear, I need to cold start (be it from hibneration or some other nifty OSX thing that you could suggest) the Mac frequently because it is completely without power (unplugged) when not in use. I want to minimize that time as much as possible and would like know what average time I can achieve and with or without SSD. So I know whether it is worth getting a SSD.

A:

What you may want to look into is the hibernate mode that your mac uses. You should read the man page for 'pmset' for further details ('man pmset' from a terminal window) and be sure you understand what it means.
By default on non-portable macs, the sleep mode keeps memory powered on while most of the machine sleeps. This way it only takes a couple of seconds to wake and sleep, BUT, you need to keep the machine powered.
On portables, by default, in addition to keeping memory powered, it also saves a copy to disk, so that in the event of loss of power, the machine can resume from the disk copy, though this takes longer. In this mode the mac typically takes about 15 seconds to sleep, and about two to wake.
There is another option - copy memory to disk, and then remove all power. This mode means that it'll probably take 10-15 seconds to 'sleep' and about the same to wake, but power can be removed completely once memory is copied. Setting this mode requires a terminal command:
sudo pmset -a hibernatemode = 25
Once this mode is set, you will be able to sleep your mac, remove power, reapply power and wake it up. The sleep and wake phases will probably take about 10 seconds. Depends on disk speed and the amount of memory installed and used.

barry

