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From Snow Leopard to ?
- Thread starter Peter Franks
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I have a 17" Early 2011 MacBook Pro running Sierra just fine on an SSD and 4 GB RAM. Upgrading to 8 GB RAM is a good idea (especially for memory-intensive apps like Photoshop), but the SSD should be your first priority if you're used to Snow Leopard's performance.
El Capitan is the last non-bollocksed MacOS. Ride it out until forced to "upgrade"
Thanks yes, SSD I sense is the more important of the two.
Deffo correct RAM yes.
Forced to upgrade is right. I have used SL for must be 8 years.... If iTunes would let me back up phone and bank would let me bank, I would probably stay as is. If it ain't broke.
Deffo correct RAM yes.
Forced to upgrade is right. I have used SL for must be 8 years.... If iTunes would let me back up phone and bank would let me bank, I would probably stay as is. If it ain't broke.
I'm not sure why that is. I do recall that some of the earlier MBPros can only max out at 6GB not 8GB. Perhaps that is the problem? I know my 2008 MBPro can only accept 6GB. The other thing that can affect boot speed is if the system hasn't been told which disk to boot from - but swapping in RAM shouldn't affect that.
Also, in my experience, RAM has minimal effect on system speed (unless you are swapping between lots of RAM hungry programs). Whereas running from an SSD is, by comparison, a HUGE difference. For example, the iMac 2016 4K I have still seems slower than my 2011 SSD MBPro, purely because the iMac has a fusion drive and not just a pure SSD.
Thank you. Have ordered the Samsung. Out of interest, do you happen to know if this will be OK to clone to when the SSD is external, and then usable to put the original HD in afterwards, despite only having 2.0 USB?
What is UASB, whatever it means, with SL it's not compatible?
Is that something that doesn't matter for what I want it for?
Please kindly note: Only Mac OS X 10.8 or newer and Windows 8 or newer operation systems can support UASP.
What is UASB, whatever it means, with SL it's not compatible?
Is that something that doesn't matter for what I want it for?
Please kindly note: Only Mac OS X 10.8 or newer and Windows 8 or newer operation systems can support UASP.
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Cloning via a USB2>SATA is not a problem - possibly slightly slower - and overall performance may appear slightly slower than either USB3 or when you place the SSD inside the computer directly attached to one the inbuilt SATA connector.
There should be no problem with then repurposing the external enclosure for your original HDD (after swapping the drives). The USB2 interface will be fine for an external HDD.
The important thing about doing the cloning step is that you need to boot into either another partition on the original HDD (if you have one), or boot into the recovery partition. It is form there that you can then clone the original system/HDD onto the SSD using Disk Utility. It is not possible to clone a system that is currently being used to boot from.
Thanks, this lost me a bit, the original HDD not possible, too full and not enough room to partition. Would something like CCC do the clone, and take care of that part so it's bootable?
Do any of those enclosures for the HD use Thunderbolt or Firewire instead of USB, and would that be a lot quicker do you think?
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Peter Franks wrote:
"Thanks, this lost me a bit, the original HDD not possible, too full and not enough room to partition. Would something like CCC do the clone, and take care of that part so it's bootable?"
Peter Franks, why don't you read my replies to you?
I've advised you several times to just download CarbonCopyCloner version 3.5.7 and give it a try. It's free -- it costs you nothing.
Why don't you just TRY it?
"Thanks, this lost me a bit, the original HDD not possible, too full and not enough room to partition. Would something like CCC do the clone, and take care of that part so it's bootable?"
Peter Franks, why don't you read my replies to you?
I've advised you several times to just download CarbonCopyCloner version 3.5.7 and give it a try. It's free -- it costs you nothing.
Why don't you just TRY it?
Peter- Given that you're on such and old version... If it were me, I would just put the new SSD in the computer, do a clean HS install, then manually re-install any apps you want. You can put the old drive in the external enclosure and (manually) move anything else you want over.
I'd been doing upgrades/migrations/time machine restores since 2006/Tiger, as I moved machines 3 times and going all the way to HS. Two months ago, when I needed to send my current mbp in for service, I finally decided to bite the bullet to wipe it and do a clean HS install and set up from scratch when it came back. I did this because 3 of my friends, who are all long time Mac users, did the same and were really happy they did it. I can't be happier with the decision. I definitely feel that HS runs "smoother" than when it was upgraded.
I've been watching this thread for the last two months, and it feels like you're really struggling to nail a clean path for the whole process... If you'd like, I'll be in London next month, I'd be happy to meet up for a pint and see if I can help you with any more questions you have, or help you with the whole thing... just a thought.
From the standpoint of Snow Leopard as an operating environment, especially if you either don't care about iCloud, iMessage, or any of the other Apple internet services that have become increasingly relevant in macOS since Snow Leopard OR at the very least are fine keeping that limited to your iOS devices, I would actually say, and I know I'm going to get flamed hard for this, you might have a better time with Windows 10. Apple's track record with macOS since Snow Leopard is no longer indicative of a consistently decent Mac experience (especially with an annual release cadence that is as drastic as it has been) and electing to move from an older unsupported version of the platform to one that probably has six months (at best) before it's unsupported is sort of crappy. It's not that I wouldn't recommend El Capitan. I love El Capitan. But, the real problem is that you're, at best, switching to an OS that will surely lose security patch support this fall, putting you in only a marginally better place than you were before in terms of being able to run current things.
That said, I recognize that your question was specifically pertinent to a 2011 MBP, which you can't get to run with Windows 10 (with fully supported drivers), so toward that end, I might actually recommend switching to Sierra. I don't like it as much as I like El Capitan, but it works and you'll have a year and six months before you lose security update support instead of just six months. I certainly hope that 10.14 is nowhere near as bad as High Sierra, though at the rate Apple is going, I won't hold my breath.
That said, I recognize that your question was specifically pertinent to a 2011 MBP, which you can't get to run with Windows 10 (with fully supported drivers), so toward that end, I might actually recommend switching to Sierra. I don't like it as much as I like El Capitan, but it works and you'll have a year and six months before you lose security update support instead of just six months. I certainly hope that 10.14 is nowhere near as bad as High Sierra, though at the rate Apple is going, I won't hold my breath.
Surf on the Pad or phone, work on SL. Simples. So many refinements were lost since 10.7+ and never returned. I've just got the 2015 MBP 15" loaded down with Low Sierra and the interface is so laggy it drives me nuts. I know it's the only secure version, but it's not even 13.3 or 4 yet. So many apps are bricked and even more features lost since 10.9 even.
I haven't read all the posts, but I've been using 10.9 on my late 2011 17" for years now. Almost everything runs on it except Appleworks (FCP, Lightroom, PhotoShop - (forget that creative cloud disaster), mail, iPhoto, etc) whereas many apps break from 10.10 up.
My MBP was excruciatingly slow on the original HDD and 4GB ram, so immediately update that to at least 8GB and the biggest SSD you can afford. Rip the DVD out and put in a 2TB HDD for mass storage or Fusion drive it. The 2011s were great machines with maximum upgrade potential (for a laptop), the 17" even having an express card slot for USB3, SD cards, eSATA, etc.
My favourite OS was/is 10.6, but it's too hard now for daily use (try an iPad for browsing, mail, etc), but it's still so fast and has pretty much all the subtle refinements that have been strip mined out in following versions
. I'm going to try to run my new 2015 MBP on 10.9 now as Low Sierra is excrutiatingly laggy even with transparency effects,, motion, whatever turned off.[doublepost=1524119103][/doublepost]
Yeah, but so are the so are the OSes after SL. Trying to place the cursor in text, keybord text navigation shortcuts disappearing, open and close windows always going to the crappy defaults, pointless chrome affectations like needless transparency hogging processor cycles, etc. There's nothing like being able to do it all on the one device, unlike iOS.
Thanks for all your replies, and macagain kind offer. All very much appreciated. The thing is, all the techy products I go anywhere near cock up in some way or other at some point, if I try to do any updates, as some of you have already picked up on. My whole business is reliant on this one SL laptop. If it goes tits up then I do. So that's maybe the reluctance. If I'd done this kind of thing before and it was something that was in my make up then it's a different thing. The first red flag was even updating the RAM was a fail, and back to original 4GB, which If I'm honest is not horrendous, most of the time. It was only because I was going to update the OS and needed more RAM for it.
The SL system has been the best I've used of any OS in history Apple or otherwise, and I've never read one report from anyone since 2011 to say the latest OS is better than SL and faultless. In 7 years, not one person has said, 'Wow, this is the best OS... etc. etc. All I hear is nothing has ever come close to the simplicity or reliability of SL. Had it not been for the bank shutting me out of all browsers, and iTunes shutting me out of updating the back ups for iPhone, I probably would just go on... The Word and Photoshop I use effortlessly on SL are incompatible with most OS after that, so another drawback and expense. 7 years of SL, and it's an unpopular opinion with many, but 'If it ain't broke'.
Also, I didn't realise that CCC trial is from download, and now telling me it's expired... despite not even using it yet.
And despite it not being 30 days!?
The SL system has been the best I've used of any OS in history Apple or otherwise, and I've never read one report from anyone since 2011 to say the latest OS is better than SL and faultless. In 7 years, not one person has said, 'Wow, this is the best OS... etc. etc. All I hear is nothing has ever come close to the simplicity or reliability of SL. Had it not been for the bank shutting me out of all browsers, and iTunes shutting me out of updating the back ups for iPhone, I probably would just go on... The Word and Photoshop I use effortlessly on SL are incompatible with most OS after that, so another drawback and expense. 7 years of SL, and it's an unpopular opinion with many, but 'If it ain't broke'.
Also, I didn't realise that CCC trial is from download, and now telling me it's expired... despite not even using it yet.
And despite it not being 30 days!?
"Also, I didn't realise that CCC trial is from download, and now telling me it's expired... despite not even using it yet. "
(sigh)
One thinks you would have at least TRIED it during the trial period.
I'll offer a suggestion to make it usable again, and don't tell anyone I told you how to do this:
1. Download the free "App Cleaner"
2. Open your applications folder "in the finder".
3. Double click App Cleaner to open it (it's window will appear on the desktop)
4. Locate the icon for CCC and drag and drop it into App Cleaner
5. App Cleaner will "round up" all the CCC files and give you a button to move them to the trash
6. DO THIS. Then close App Cleaner and empty the trash.
7. Download a FRESH COPY of CCC.
8. Launch CCC -- does it work again?
(sigh)
One thinks you would have at least TRIED it during the trial period.
I'll offer a suggestion to make it usable again, and don't tell anyone I told you how to do this:
1. Download the free "App Cleaner"
2. Open your applications folder "in the finder".
3. Double click App Cleaner to open it (it's window will appear on the desktop)
4. Locate the icon for CCC and drag and drop it into App Cleaner
5. App Cleaner will "round up" all the CCC files and give you a button to move them to the trash
6. DO THIS. Then close App Cleaner and empty the trash.
7. Download a FRESH COPY of CCC.
8. Launch CCC -- does it work again?
Just out of interest: Does CCC work to clone a partition *without* the need of another bootable partition?
I've always made a spare partition (or booted from an external) in order to perform cloning step etc.
spectrum wrote:
"Just out of interest: Does CCC work to clone a partition *without* the need of another bootable partition?
I've always made a spare partition (or booted from an external) in order to perform cloning step etc."
I can't make hide nor hair of your post above.
All one does is:
1. Launch CCC
2. Put the source on the left.
3. Put the target on its right
4. Click the clone button
How much easier can it be?
"Just out of interest: Does CCC work to clone a partition *without* the need of another bootable partition?
I've always made a spare partition (or booted from an external) in order to perform cloning step etc."
I can't make hide nor hair of your post above.
All one does is:
1. Launch CCC
2. Put the source on the left.
3. Put the target on its right
4. Click the clone button
How much easier can it be?
As your primary machine, I couldn't make a recommendation. Having quite a few macs here, I've upgraded the older machines at each new OS, tried them out for a few weeks, and then downgraded them back to either SL if possible, El Cap for those newer than the SL era. But those are our older systems that aren't in daily use. Some act as servers, some are just hooked up to run to a certain piece of equipment, and Snow Leopard & El Capitan run fast and steady on them. And of course SL looks great, so it's always a treat whenever you get to go over and use one of those systems for a few minutes, and are reminded of what Apples Ui team is actually capable of.
It does begin to resemble the idea that the machine as a whole runs best with its original operating system, but in this case that's coincidence, since most of our big computer orders happened in the SL & El Cap eras. Then again, I upgraded all our new Sierra systems to High Sierra, and that was such a total disaster, I downgraded them back to Sierra as well, and may stay there permanently if HS is never completed.
Single points of failure are never good. I'd invest in a new/newer computer ASAP and keep the old as a backup.
In absolute terms I'd imagine Mountain Lion or Mavericks would be the best OS for 2011 hardware stuck with an HDD and 4GB ram, but since Apple has dropped ongoing support for both I doubt such an upgrade would be worth the risk for a business critical machine.
"Wow, Sierra is the best OS!" Granted, there is no way Sierra would actually productively run on 4GB Ram with an HDD, but it was the first OS where I chose to be an early adaptor and didn't regret it and is currently a stable final release. High Sierra has promise, but I think Sierra still wins due to support uncertainty surrounding APFS.
It’ll be interesting to see if El Cap still gets security updates in the Fall. Right now if it follows Yosemite which got its last updat in July 2017 then the answer is no. But El Cap is the final release a lot of hardware supports.
Agree, really hope they'll make El Cap some sort of 'long term support' version because of the older hardware. Personally I didn't notice much difference between el cap and sierra on my mbp 2011 with SSD. Haven't (and probably won't) try High Sierra.
Nice one, well you'd think huh? But the SSD was ballsed up in transit, and all my other externals are rammed, and needed a spare 500GB so waiting for the SSD... but thanks for this.
I think you've kind of proved my point, yes. Someone, anyone, tell me different and that HS is the best you can possibly get.....It's not like anyone hasn't ever commented that they've never matched the ease of SL, and we're now into the 7th year of trying. I don't doubt plenty are cool with it, but they're usually the late starters who never experienced SL.
You are of course 100% correct, and I'm an idiot for not buying a new one. Business has been pretty pants, slowest it's been for years, and I probably should do an HP loan on a new MBP, Truth is, I'm not overly impressed with the new ones, and read many negatives, not just about the lack of ports, but plenty else besides, and also the rumour mill of a new model this coming summer? I doubt it will be that different, and pretty sure they won't upgrade a few more ports either, or bring back magsafe. Stupid little things that you wonder why and what goes through their mindset. But I know it's an obvious call to buy a new one after 7 years of usage. To be honest, it's quite impressive to me I've had it that long. Laptops I owned prior to being swayed over to Apple would never make it even half that long, so in answer to a previous shout, I wouldn't go anywhere else for my next laptop. I may even be able to go MacBook, but it's not that much cheaper than the Pro, and it's probably not enough for what I need either. I kind of like the option of being able to run two OS. I know that when I transfer an El Cap/Sierra into this one, there will be loads of things that won't work, or unexplained phenomenons it never did with SL. That's life, and very expected also. I'll have to also fork out for a compatible Word/Photoshop as that site, who's name I can't remember that shows what is and is not compatible says, no.
People I really appreciate your time on this post, and always am grateful that you guys take time out to answer my cluelessness. So thanks again for all input. I would LOVE to think it's helping others who are also rubbish at anything else, other than using the OS. And gives them ideas or help in these situations
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OK, just received the SSD and casing... I want to CCC the SSD, but I can just do that off bat with Snow Leopard, and then update to El Cap/Sierra when it's fitted in the MBP right? And also the old HDD will retain the SL if all goes tits up.
'Trim' I don't need to do before any of this, I can do after right?
When I erase this one, I've seen videos that tell you to do I partition?
Is that related to the Recovery, and even though I don't full understand it, do I do the same before cloning?
'Trim' I don't need to do before any of this, I can do after right?
When I erase this one, I've seen videos that tell you to do I partition?
Is that related to the Recovery, and even though I don't full understand it, do I do the same before cloning?
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