Lion upgrade vs. fresh install

[mcvaughan]

OK, so I have a 2011 i7 MacBook Pro and a 2011 i7 Air. The Pro was upgraded to Lion from SL and the Air obviously had Lion pre-installed. I do have a nice Vertex 3 SSD in my Pro, but for some reason the Air seems speedier for everyday tasks. I'm debating whether or not to do a fresh install of Lion on my Pro.

Thoughts?

 

[blackburn]

A fresh install always helps in clearing some crap that may be lingering in your mac.
I never do upgrades and every time I do an OS upgrade, I clean up on my stuff too and then backup it a do a clean install. Using migration assistant may copy some crap too (I don't really know about migration assistant since I never use it).

 

[err404]

OP, if you rebuild, let me know your results. I just bought an iMac this week and it shipped with SL. The first thing I did was upgrade to Lion. I'd hate to be starting of with impaired performance.

Keep in mind, if you perform a clean Lion install, you will lose iLife 11 apps...

 

[adztaylor]

I opted for a clean install this time round, simply because I upgraded from Leopard to Snow Leopard on my old '08 Aluminium MacBook then migrated everything over when I got my new MBP. Just thought it might be a good idea to get rid of some junk that might have been lingering for a while.

 

[RobT]

I did an upgrade from SL to Lion initially on my MBP then did clean install. Maybe it's just wishful thinking but it seems to run better following the clean install. Plus, it frees up disk space in that there things (leftover pieces f uninstalled apps, etc.) that aren't re-installed wit the clean OS install.

So, I recommend the clean install because you are highly likely to see 1) better performance (faster, fewer crashes, less lag) and 2)more disk space.

 

[MaxBeagleton]

I did both, not much of a difference.

I upgraded my mid-2010 iMac and that's the way it's running now.

I first upgraded my mid-2009 MBP and then, because my MBP is my "playground" and "testbed" I did a fresh install a couple of different times with and without using migration assistant, using different combos of migrating user data and applications. I finally settled on not using MA at all and reinstalling all my purchased apps.

I have iLife '11, MS Office '11, PS 5, LR 3, Handbrake and free XCode as my big, "important" apps. I have about 26G of music, 40G of photos and about 300G of transcoded DVDs and other home videos.

I didn't collect any careful analytics, but I can't say I noticed any differences (speed, temperature or whatever) with any of these methods.

 

[err404]

Many of the posts on this thread are recommending the clean install based upon the theory of removing clutter accumulated over the years .
OP has a 2011 MBP. Assuming that there was relatively little clutter on the machine, would he see much, if any, improvement?

The reason I ask is because in my case I had a completely clean SL install. Literally the first thing installed was Lion.
I'm leaning towards a rebuild tonight before making too many changes on the machine. But I don't want to waste my time for no reason.