32

How long does the RasPi take to boot when using the standard Debian distribution on a typical SD card? Are we talking less than a second? A couple of seconds? 10 seconds? 100 seconds?

This isn't too important for most users and applications, but could be important for embedded solutions which are not permanently switched on.

darryn.ten
  • 1,476
  • 2
  • 14
  • 18
winwaed
  • 1,459
  • 2
  • 15
  • 25

6 Answers6

23

This is completely dependant on the Class of SD card you are using.

A Class 4 card, which is the minimum recommended has an average read/write speed of 4 MB/sec.

If you spend a little extra and buy a Class 10 card, you should find that the boot time is approximately 25% of the Class 4, as it should read at 10MB/sec.

Using finnw's estimate that 24 seconds pass while using a Class 6 we can guess this could be reduced to 14.4 seconds with a Class 10 device.

Classes 2-10 will give you boot times something like this:

enter image description here

Update:

With the release of new hard float distributions boot time has been significantly reduced. In addition, Arch Arm Linux is now using systemd instead of init which starts processes in parallel and is considered to be much faster. As a result my Class 10 SD card now boots Arch to a login prompt in about 6-7 seconds.

Jivings
  • 22,656
  • 11
  • 94
  • 140
17

I timed it on my Pi, and it took 24 seconds from powerup to login prompt.

This is with a Transcend Class 6 4GB SD card loaded with Debian Squeeze.

This is the card that is recommended by RS for use with the RasPi, so this may qualify as "typical" as many users will probably have this type of card.

finnw
  • 5,790
  • 3
  • 34
  • 42
7

For better boot times, update the firmware (with rpi-update), install the system with hard-floats and keep it updated.

Older firmware are usually slower, hard-floats increase a lot the system speed, every day there are more optimization for arm, specially for rpi

higuita
  • 684
  • 6
  • 7
6

Patriot class 10 32Gb with nothing connected but the hdmi took 30s from power up to login prompt

David Sykes
  • 1,434
  • 3
  • 19
  • 28
6

My Kingston 4gb class 4 loaded with Debian Squeeze took 40 seconds from power up to login prompt

David Sykes
  • 1,434
  • 3
  • 19
  • 28
4

Transcend 32GB class 10 needs 30 seconds. I don't think that older and newer images boot for the same time, so results should mention image version. Mine was 2012-10-28-wheezy-raspbian.zip.

avra
  • 1,273
  • 8
  • 9