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Dirty vs Clean Lion Install

Delighted

Delighted

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Feb 25, 2012
253
1
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Has anyone noticed any difference in performance between the dirty install(upgrade from SL) and the clean install(make bootable USB)?

The first time I installed Lion was using the dirty install, I had all my apps set up and was ready to go. After Lion was installed I immediately experienced issues with iTunes. Apparantly my itunes on SL was a newer version than the one that came with Lion, performance was buggy and slow.

Last night I made a bootable Lion USB, everything seems to run much smoother and surprisingly no issues to report so far.

What was your experience like? Does Lion work better when you clean or dirty install? Or are there no differences?

Is the itunes problem I mentioned above still plaguing new Lion converters?

Are slow
 
Delighted said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

Has anyone noticed any difference in performance between the dirty install(upgrade from SL) and the clean install(make bootable USB)?

The first time I installed Lion was using the dirty install, I had all my apps set up and was ready to go. After Lion was installed I immediately experienced issues with iTunes. Apparantly my itunes on SL was a newer version than the one that came with Lion, performance was buggy and slow.

Last night I made a bootable Lion USB, everything seems to run much smoother and surprisingly no issues to report so far.

What was your experience like? Does Lion work better when you clean or dirty install? Or are there no differences?

Is the itunes problem I mentioned above still plaguing new Lion converters?

Are slow
Click to expand...

I was running a dirty install since Leopard. Upgrade to SL went absolutely fine and upgrade to Lion as well. However, after installing 10.7.3, Safari started behaving erratically, I'd get app crashes after waking up from sleep (apps would bounce but not launch) and it was just not as snappy as it used to be. I just did a reinstall of 10.7.3 via Recovery HD and so far, so good and the system is snappier.
 
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I agree with you guys the cleaner install seems much more stable. I cannot wait to see mountain lion official release
 
I'm of the fresh install type and whether its my 8gb of ram, or the clean install, but 10.7 has been very stable for me.
 
Delighted said:
....

The first time I installed Lion was using the dirty install, I had all my apps set up and was ready to go. After Lion was installed I immediately experienced issues with iTunes. Apparantly my itunes on SL was a newer version than the one that came with Lion, performance was buggy and slow.

...
Click to expand...
This Mac user of 23 years always does an upgrade. In my not so humble opinion, a Clean Install is a massive waste of time.
 
MisterMe said:
This Mac user of 23 years always does an upgrade. In my not so humble opinion, a Clean Install is a massive waste of time.
Click to expand...

Agree. I have done clean installs to fix problems (as a last resort to determine if I had a hardware failure), but never just because I was upgrading my OS.

jW
 
I have a a 13" MBP which I did a clean install on, and a 17" MBP that I did an upgrade from Snow Leopard on, both just recently (within the week). Havn't noticed any issues or dramas or differences between either, granted the 17" has higher specs and its only been about a week, but so far so good :)
 
I upgrade to Lion from Snow Leopard last time when it was first released and had no problems with doing a upgrade :)
 
I've always done an upgrade install going from Tiger->Leopard->Snow Leopard->Lion and have not had any problems, at least none significant enough to remember. I tried a clean install with Lion on another partition just to see if there was any performance difference and I noticed none so I just kept with my upgraded existing install.
 
I did "dirty" upgrade from 10.5 -> 10.6 -> 10.7 and did not have any issues at all. For me, the hassle of re-installing the system is not worth it thus far as I have not had issues. But obviously I can't compare to a "clean" install.
 
Yeah, i wouldn't bother to do a clean install unless there as a problem, but really - if you have a time machine backup, doing a clean install really is pretty painless.

I guess what I'm saying is that if you upgrade, notice things not quite right (slow, flaky, etc) then a clean reinstall isn't that much of a pain to eliminate any potential gremlins you may have because of the upgrade.
 
RJCP said:
I was running a dirty install since Leopard. Upgrade to SL went absolutely fine and upgrade to Lion as well. However, after installing 10.7.3, Safari started behaving erratically, I'd get app crashes after waking up from sleep (apps would bounce but not launch) and it was just not as snappy as it used to be. I just did a reinstall of 10.7.3 via Recovery HD and so far, so good and the system is snappier.
Click to expand...



You did a clean install via the recovery partition?
 
I finally decided to get Lion and install it last night. I did a clean install from a bootable USB key that I made. Then imported all my data over from my backup drive. So far everything is running smoothly. Actually liking Lion so far. :)
 
SRLMJ23 said:
Trust me, a fresh install ALWAYS beats an upgrade.
Click to expand...

The question is, why should I believe you? I've done hundreds of upgrades and dozens of clean installs. The clean installs were only as good as the data transfer back, and the amount of extra work involved makes it a very bad value proposition for all but the most anal of users. A clean install is a last resort troubleshooting step, not standard procedure.

jW
 
I try doing upgrades before clean installs, but there's only been a single instance where the upgrade went well and I didn't need to go back and do a clean install anyway.
 
I believe when it comes time to install a new OS a Fresh Install is the best way to go, is it a hassle? Sometimes, yes, sometimes no. It really depends on your skill of a user. If you're a very skilled user you should be able to have your system up and running in 45 minutes to an hour. I can get mine done in about 40 minutes, maybe even a little less. It doesn't take long to reinstall your apps, the thing that takes the most time for me is iTunes and loading all my music but id rather have a fresh system that I know has zero issues so be it iTunes takes a while to reinstall all my music and tv, and movie stuff (Through iTunes Match.) This is obviously just my opinion, do what YOU want.
 
throAU said:
Yeah, i wouldn't bother to do a clean install unless there as a problem, but really - if you have a time machine backup, doing a clean install really is pretty painless.
Click to expand...

Restoring from a Time Machine backup is not a clean install. A clean install involves moving data back manually and installing all 3rd party programs again from scratch. A Time Machine restore will basically give you the same system you would have if you just did an upgrade install.
 
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