Slow start up time

Question

Lately I have been noticing that my macbook has been starting much slower, and I still have 50gb out of 80gb free and I'm wondering what can be done?

Answer 1

While more RAM will help system performance considerably, the slow startup you are experiencing is likely not the 256 RAM. I keep a G4 iMac/800 as a reference tool and with only 256Mb RAM, it's startup time in Tiger is certainly under a minute.
What you are more likely experiencing is an issue with the various tests that your mini performans when starting up. The most common culprit in delayed starting being the network test. If the mini is set to look for a network and doesn't immediately find one, the system will go through several retrys before it gives up and moves on.
To see if this is the cause, go to the network preference pane and where is says 'show' pick 'network port configurations' from the drop down list. This will show you the list of networking ports the system knows about, and which order it tries to use them. You should drag the list of ports (ethernet, airport, firewire, modem) until it's in the order of use - ie, if you use dial up, drag the modem to the top of the list.
If that doesn't help, post back with a bit more information as to what your system is, how it's set up and what you've got running on it - that'll help with further diagnosis!