Installing a New Operating System

[jparker402]

Was viewing some YouTube tutorials on disk utility yesterday, and at least one of them recommended/suggested reinstalling a fresh copy of the OS software as a means of enhancing hard drive capability. Just not looked at Tips and Hints here that talked about doing the same thing to eliminate possible "errors" or fragmentation or something that might have crept in over time.

As a novice to such things, this fills me with the trepidation that heart transplant surgery would! Would like opinions/assurances/warnings about this procedure (the computer, not the heart).

 

[Erehy Dobon]

My opinion is that 95% of YouTube technical tutorials are garbage.

Installing a fresh copy of an operating system on a blank drive does not "enhance hard drive capability" [sic]. It does let you start from scratch without the cruft that may or may not accumulate over years from repeated software installations.

If you are not having problems with your Mac currently, I see no reason to do something this drastic.

In any case, if you want instructions on how to do this, find a more reliable source other than some random vlogger who is probably more interested in views (to monetize their content) than accuracy of information.

Note that the sketchiness of YouTube tutorial videos is not limited to Mac system administration advice. There are a ton of crappy fitness videos. There are a ton of crappy cooking videos. There are a ton of crappy skateboarding videos.

This is about the same as "I read on the Internet that..." which is like "My older brother's girlfriend's uncle says that..."

Heck, there's a lot of incorrect advice given on these Q&A forums as well for that matter.

 

[0128672]

Was viewing some YouTube tutorials on disk utility yesterday, and at least one of them recommended/suggested reinstalling a fresh copy of the OS software as a means of enhancing hard drive capability. Just not looked at Tips and Hints here that talked about doing the same thing to eliminate possible "errors" or fragmentation or something that might have crept in over time.

Maybe if you tell us what problem you'd trying to solve and what your Mac and OS version are, we can provide easier solutions than a full wipe and reinstall.

 

[Erehy Dobon]

Namara is right.

Wiping the drive is extreme, like getting your car completely overhauled even though you just needed to change the windshield wiper blades because they are leaving streaks on the windshield. Or replacing your entire kitchen when all you needed was to screw in a new lightbulb in the microwave oven.

The problem is that the OP didn't even bother to spend two minutes describing/showing what/if any problems he has experienced on his Mac.

How the heck can anyone here give any sort of sensible & relevant advice if we don't even know what problem exists (if any)?

This is a really poor approach to system administration.

 

[jparker402]

I have a MacBook Air 2015 with Catalina 10.15.5. And I don't really have a problem. Got the impression from what I was viewing that perhaps reinstalling was something one should do every so often as a matter of good practice. Glad I asked the question above! Sounding like my analogy with a heart transplant was right! Thanks, folks!

 

[0128672]

I get why he's asking about doing it as a preventive maintenance step. There's plenty out there about routine annual wipe and reinstalls; it's just that it's not really necessary.
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I have a MacBook Air 2015 with Catalina 10.15.5. And I don't really have a problem. Got the impression from what I was viewing that perhaps reinstalling was something one should do every so often as a matter of good practice. Glad I asked the question above! Sounding like my analogy with a heart transplant was right! Thanks, folks!

Totally understand why you asked. There are people who wipe & reinstall their Macs or Windows systems every year as a routine maintenance step. Unless you're trying to solve a specific problem, you probably wouldn't see a big performance gain, if that's what you were hoping for.

That being said, someone else will post here about how amazing and fantastic their system's performance is after routine wipe & reinstall, so there are two sides to the coin for sure.

 

[Erehy Dobon]

And I don't really have a problem.

I am not one to search for solutions to problems that don't exist.

I have better things to do with my time.

I know there are others who don't. Your call.

 

[casperes1996]

I have a MacBook Air 2015 with Catalina 10.15.5. And I don't really have a problem. Got the impression from what I was viewing that perhaps reinstalling was something one should do every so often as a matter of good practice. Glad I asked the question above! Sounding like my analogy with a heart transplant was right! Thanks, folks!

If your drive has actual errors, the drive won't be repaired by being wiped. The advice perhaps stems from mechanical drives where bad sectors can be marked as such and avoided, decreasing the storage space available but not writing data in bad regions. This would also happen without a reinstall, but you might see corrupt files before it is detected. - This is not a concern for SSD that typically don't fail in this manner.
Regarding fragmentation, yes, deleting everything and reinstall can reduce fragmentation. But again this is mostly a concern for mechanical drives, not SSDs. And you also don't need to delete everything for it. If you have enough free space to for the OS to re-arrange items on the drive it will regularly do so on its own to avoid too much fragmentation when necessary and there are commands to do it on your own as well.

That being said, someone else will post here about how amazing and fantastic their system's performance is after routine wipe & reinstall, so there are two sides to the coin for sure.

And those people are probably right. If they accumulate a million programs that run in the background that they don't know about, starting from fresh won't have all that running. But yeah, absolutely no need to wipe clean all the time unless you're doing it for a specific reason. - Well, possibly with Windows... Windows tends to rot over time, corrupted registry entries and such...

And I say this as someone who does regularly reinstall macOS - that is, I have a main install that I barely ever touch, and then I have another partition where I reinstall a fresh version regularly for beta releases and software development testing. And I have an external SSD with Ubuntu Mate and a third macOS set up with my minimal support target, again for testing.

In short my conclusion is also "Don't worry about it".

 

[2984839]

All it will do is cause a lot of unnecessary writes to the SSD. Don't bother unless there's something wrong with your current install, or you just feel like it.

 

[chown33]

... I don't really have a problem. ...

Rule #1: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.