Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Consensus on install route?

How did you install Leopard?

  • Archive and Install

    Votes: 10 20.4%

  • Clean Install

    Votes: 24 49.0%

  • Upgrade

    Votes: 15 30.6%
  • Total voters
    49
roland.g

roland.g

macrumors 604
Original poster
Apr 11, 2005
7,583
3,435
Are there performance and other advantages/disadvantages to an archive and install vs a clean install (with prior data backup/post install migration)?

I am assuming that fresh install is the same as clean install. I have a 2.8Ghz iMac. I would prefer to archive install and wipe out the old system folder rather than back up, re-migrate photo and music libraries, etc., but not at the expense of performance.

Also does this mean pulling iLife of my iMac restore disks too. Is all that worth it?

I don't plan on choosing the straight upgrade in case it damages the system files/hangs/etc.

I know this may have been covered by some polls early in the weekend, but I wanted to see what people's experience was now after some time had passed.
 
roland.g said:
Are there performance and other advantages/disadvantages to an archive and install vs a clean install (with prior data backup/post install migration)?

I am assuming that fresh install is the same as clean install. I have a 2.8Ghz iMac. I would prefer to archive install and wipe out the old system folder rather than back up, re-migrate photo and music libraries, etc., but not at the expense of performance.

Also does this mean pulling iLife of my iMac restore disks too. Is all that worth it?

I don't plan on choosing the straight upgrade in case it damages the system files/hangs/etc.

I know this may have been covered by some polls early in the weekend, but I wanted to see what people's experience was now after some time had passed.
Click to expand...


I'm curious about this also. I'm planning on a doing a clean install, meaning I'm going to erase and install. After it's installed i'm planning on reinstalling iLife and stuff from my Tiger disk that came with my new 2.8 24" iMac. (It's only about 3 months old)

After I do those things I'm planning on manually putting my music and photos back on from a backup to an external HD that I'll do before the install. Any suggestions?

Thanks.
 
Erase & Install. VERY STABLE and FAST. No problems so far. Memory usage, boot time, wake from sleep time, improved dramatically.
 
kittiyut said:
Erase & Install. VERY STABLE and FAST. No problems so far. Memory usage, boot time, wake from sleep time, improved dramatically.
Click to expand...

How did you get your iLife app's back on? Did you have to use the Install disk that originally came with your Mac? I'm planning on doing it this way. Just want to know if it works well/easily.

Thanks.
 
rendezvouscp said:
Just use the install disks that came with your Mac for iLife; pop in the first one and it'll ask you for the second one.
-Chasen
Click to expand...

Is this in the "Install bundled software only" icon on that disk? I'm doing it this weekend and just want to make sure I know exactly WHAT to do.

Thanks.
 
I'm sure an upgrade would be OK otherwise Apple wouldn't make this the default option. But having said that I still did an erase and install to get rid of all the rubbish on my boot drive.

I keep all my data on another partition on my Mac Pro so this made the process pretty painless. Although I had to re-install Adobe CS3, iLife 08, NeoOffice and Adium I was still up and running within a couple of hours. I'm only re-installing other bits and pieces as and when I suddenly realise I need them!

As has been suggested by others here, the OS flies. Coverflow is amazingly quick and the Finder is so responsive now. Wow! What I don't know is if this would've been the case regardless of the update route I'd taken...
 
Seems like a lot are saying erase and install. Did you let the installer do this, or did you take the extra step to use disk utility to more thoroughly wipe the drive first?

Note: still not sure I want to go this route. But I may.
 
I used Disk Utility to zero the hard drive before installing a clean install of Leopard. With 160GB drives, the wipe and install took about two hours all together, with another hour or so of setting things up, but I feel like it's worth it because I only do it once for every OS upgrade.
-Chasen
 
Well my iMac only has about 155GB of data on it incl. the system/OS. Not sure how much of that I need to back up for erase and install.

Data. App installs. I just went through migrating from my Mini in Aug. Should have waited to get the iMac with Leo. Live and learn. But zeroing out my 750GB internal drive, not sure how long that will take if most of it is already empty, or if that matters. Might not go that route, just let the installer erase it.
 
It doesn't seem as if Disk Utility checks to see if a bit is a 0 or a 1 before switching it to a 0; I took a drive that was already zeroed and zeroed it again, and it took the same amount of time. I'm betting your 750GB drive would take five or six hours to clean.
-Chasen
 
i did erase & install. i didn't bother with zeroing out the drive. the install was flawless. leopard is running smoothly.
 
Erase & Install isn't needed. At all. Archive & Install will give you a new System and keep your old applications and files.

It's like the "colon cleansing" ads you hear...how it will "flush your system out and get rid of all the toxins". It's quackery...

I have two macs, two exactly the same (one is my wife's, one is mine). I Archived & Installed on mine and clean-installed on hers and guess what...no difference. None...zip...zilch...nada.

But hey, whatever makes you happy. If it "seems" faster and better to you, then who am I to tell you different.
 
Seriously... it doesn't matter. Just do whatever. All are supposed to work. If you just want to get it done, do an upgrade. If you're slightly paranoid do an archive and install. If you're very paranoid, do an erase and install. I'm very paranoid.

Mostly it just depends on a case by case basis what suits the user, how tidy they are while running previous OS's, what hacks they'll installed, and how much they care about cleaning up a few stray megs or gigs they forgot to delete. There is no consensus. All work, all are just as fitting. It's more of a personality thing than a "correct" thing.
 
My MacBook is in the process of doing an Archive and Install, but I think I may do a Erase and Install later this weekend on the iMac and maybe redo the MacBook. Can somebody point me to a thread with instructions on backing up the data to restore when Leopard is installed. I just bought an external HDD.

Thanks!
 
Erase & Install - I don't trust OS upgrades, and didn't want to deal with digging through an archive. Just backed up iTunes and other data to an external drive, de-authorized iTunes, and did the fresh install.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back