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Not impressed with Mojave.

rafcorporal

rafcorporal

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 12, 2018
22
3
Derby England.
Hi every-one, Not long ago I upgraded to Mojave from High Sierra, (thinking mainly about the security updates), but for reasons I am not sure about I am not impressed with Mojave! I have a thumb drive with High Sierra on but not sure if it is a bootable copy; can I down grade back to High Sierra and if so what is the proceedure please? I now ask is it worth the effort of down grading given that I have not got a clue how to do it as I am not computer literate? By the way I am running an iMac 21.5 inch Feb 2018 model.

Very best regards from Keith in Derby England.
 
KeesMacPro

KeesMacPro

macrumors 65816
Nov 7, 2019
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592
Hi
Unfortunately downgrading is not as easy as upgrading the OS.
It is though very well possible, and may look more complicated than it is.
If you follow these steps you'll succeed:
1-make a TimeMachine backup of your data on another (external) disc.
2-make a bootable installer of High Sierra on e.g. a usb (thumb) drive of 8GB minimal :
-download the latest HS here:
https://support.apple.com/nl-nl/HT208969
look under #4: download HS
-how to make a installer:

Create a bootable installer for macOS – Apple Support (UK)

Use an external drive or secondary volume as a startup disk from which to install macOS.
support.apple.com support.apple.com
(terminal can be found here: applications>utilities>terminal)
After successfully make a usb installer shut the iMac off and:
3-plug the installer in, start up and hold the "option" key while the iMac boots, you'll see the HDD and the installer choose the installer(press > or <) and press enter.
4-once the installer is loaded,erase the internal HDD from Disc Utilities choose GUID partition and HFS+ as the format (Mac OS extended journaled)
5-install HS on the internal HDD. After the install OS will ask if you want to recover from a TM backup: choose NO.
6-after checking the clean install works fine, go to App Store and install available updates of HS,restart and:
7- plug in the TM backup, go to applications>utilities>immigration assistant and choose to recover from TM.
This way you'll have a clean HS install with all your data.

EDIT:
rafcorporal said:
is it worth the effort of down grading
Click to expand...
Yes, the original HDD performs worse with the format necessary to install Mojave.
 
Last edited:
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MarkC426

MarkC426

macrumors 68040
May 14, 2008
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In what respect are you not impressed with Mojave?
Do you have software not working, is it sluggish..... ?
 
rafcorporal

rafcorporal

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 12, 2018
22
3
Derby England.
KeesMacPro and MarkC426, Thanks to both of you for your replies to my post. MarkC426 although my iMac is not overloaded by the biggest stretch of the imagination the iMac appears to be slower when compared to the quickness of before the update. I prefer it as it used to be prior to the update.
 
adrianlondon

adrianlondon

macrumors 603
Nov 28, 2013
5,028
7,596
Switzerland
I would suggest the opposite. Upgrade to Catalina (or just wait) and then Big Sur when it comes out.

I may be in the minority, but I found Catalina (and now Big Sur) faster on my 2013 MBP than Mojave.
 
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KeesMacPro

KeesMacPro

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Nov 7, 2019
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rafcorporal said:
the iMac appears to be slower when compared to the quickness of before the update.
Click to expand...

Mojave changes the format of the HDD to APFS.
It is well known that APFS slows down spinning drives like e.g. the OEM HDD in this iMac .
 
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jbarley

jbarley

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Jul 1, 2006
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If the OP has been using Time Machine with High Sierra, a Time Machine restore from the Recovery HD should work.
Startup while pressing the cmd+R keys.
I would suggest using Disk Utility to erase the intended installation HD to HFS before restoring High Sierra.

photo.JPG photo 2.JPG
 
Fishrrman

Fishrrman

macrumors Penryn
Feb 20, 2009
28,458
12,573
OP:

A VERY IMPORTANT QUESTION, please answer.
Does your iMac have an internal platter-based hard drive?
Or... is it something else?

IF it's a platter-based drive, it's going to be slow -- and I mean, SLOW -- with modern versions of the Mac OS (and High Sierra or Mojave will make little or no difference). The drive simply isn't fast enough to keep up with the demands of the OS.

There's a cheap and easy way to FIX THIS so you won't be bothered with it any more.

Get a USB3 EXTERNAL SSD, plug it in, and copy everything over to it.
Now, make it the boot drive.
Things will run 3-4x faster.

This is so easy to do, it's literally CHILD'S PLAY on the Mac.
Won't cost much at all, either.

You can buy a "pre-configured" SSD like the Samsung t5 or new t7.
Or... buy a "bare drive" and an enclosure, and "snap it together" yourself.

Doing this will be easier than "downgrading" and the results will be far FAR better.
You'll come back here and say "I never would have believed it could run so fast!"
 
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KeesMacPro

KeesMacPro

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Nov 7, 2019
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Fishrrman said:
and High Sierra or Mojave will make little or no difference
Click to expand...

Well, from HFS+ to APFS, definitely will not improve overall performance.
Your suggestion though might be the easiest,cheapest thus simply the best solution for the OP.
 
jbarley

jbarley

macrumors 601
Jul 1, 2006
4,023
1,893
Vancouver Island
Fishrrman said:
OP:

A VERY IMPORTANT QUESTION, please answer.
Does your iMac have an internal platter-based hard drive?
Or... is it something else?
Click to expand...

I googled the specs for a 2018 iMac and found nothing.
But Apples specs for both the 2017 and 2019 iMacs show a basic configuation comes with a 1TD SSD.
Maybe the OP can confirm this?
 
jbarley

jbarley

macrumors 601
Jul 1, 2006
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Vancouver Island
rafcorporal

rafcorporal

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 12, 2018
22
3
Derby England.
Fishrrman said:
OP:

A VERY IMPORTANT QUESTION, please answer.
Does your iMac have an internal platter-based hard drive?
Or... is it something else?

IF it's a platter-based drive, it's going to be slow -- and I mean, SLOW -- with modern versions of the Mac OS (and High Sierra or Mojave will make little or no difference). The drive simply isn't fast enough to keep up with the demands of the OS.

There's a cheap and easy way to FIX THIS so you won't be bothered with it any more.

Get a USB3 EXTERNAL SSD, plug it in, and copy everything over to it.
Now, make it the boot drive.
Things will run 3-4x faster.

This is so easy to do, it's literally CHILD'S PLAY on the Mac.
Won't cost much at all, either.

You can buy a "pre-configured" SSD like the Samsung t5 or new t7.
Or... buy a "bare drive" and an enclosure, and "snap it together" yourself.

Doing this will be easier than "downgrading" and the results will be far FAR better.
You'll come back here and say "I never would have believed it could run so fast!"
Click to expand...
Fisherman, Hello to you; My hard drive is an older type 1TB spinner as per brand new iMac 21.5 inch. I must admit I had never thought of using an external solid state hard drive; what a super idea and I will look into the viability of it because being retired the pennies are tight (soon to be 86 years old) Keith.
 
L

Lars B.

macrumors member
Apr 5, 2019
47
46
Fishrrman is right, an SSD upgrade will make your Mac much faster. If you don't want to invest too much, you could opt for a smaller SSD, e.g. 240GB. After all, you will keep the internal 1TB HD, so if you have large video files that would not fit on the SSD, you can simply save them on the HD.
The external SSD Transcend ESD230C with 240 GB is currently available for ~40£ on amazοn.
 
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B

BShanks

macrumors newbie
Feb 4, 2020
12
15
I purchased the exact same iMac last summer and followed the advice of those on this forum to get an external SSD. I did so (Samsung T3 500GB) and the experience has been great so far. High Sierra runs on the HDD and Mojave on the SSD. In fact, I got the SSD shortly after purchasing so I don’t even know what the original HDD experience would have been like.

What’s good with this set up is that I use the HDD for storage and the SSD for everything else.
 
rafcorporal

rafcorporal

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 12, 2018
22
3
Derby England.
Whilst I have a copy of Catalina OS on my external 1TB solid state hard drive try as I might I feel that making my iMac boot from it is simply beyond my capabilities. It seem to me that I get a complete mental block part of the way through the task, even after three attempts it becomes impossible. That fact has made me decide to download Catalina and I must admit my iMac seems quicker than on Mojave but it might be psychological!
Many thanks to all who have contributed to this post.
Very best regards from Keith in Derby.
 
Yebubbleman

Yebubbleman

macrumors 603
May 20, 2010
5,837
2,426
Los Angeles, CA
rafcorporal said:
Whilst I have a copy of Catalina OS on my external 1TB solid state hard drive try as I might I feel that making my iMac boot from it is simply beyond my capabilities. It seem to me that I get a complete mental block part of the way through the task, even after three attempts it becomes impossible. That fact has made me decide to download Catalina and I must admit my iMac seems quicker than on Mojave but it might be psychological!
Many thanks to all who have contributed to this post.
Very best regards from Keith in Derby.
Click to expand...

Mojave ought to not be slower than High Sierra. It sounds like one of a few things might be happening here:

1. If you have a 21.5" iMac, and you have a 1TB hard drive, those drives are typically the really thin 2.5" laptop hard drives. They were never that fast to begin with and they are prone to failure. An OS upgrade entails a lot of reading and writing to disk. It's possible that this did enough of a number on the drive to make it that much closer to failing.

2. Mojave is the first release of macOS wherein the boot drive is converted from HFS+ (Journaled) to APFS for boot drives that are either Hard Drives or Fusion Drives. APFS is known to cause performance issues on Hard Drive and Fusion Drive installations of macOS (given that it really was designed for SSDs). Frankly, this may be your most likely culprit.

3. Your installation of High Sierra might have had a lot of cruft on it that carried over and was made all the worse by the Mojave upgrade.


As for why Catalina is faster, it's possible that Apple has improved APFS performance on Hard Drives and Fusion Drives for those installations. I haven't heard of anything to that effect. I've also not found much of a performance difference between the versions of macOS dating back to OS X El Capitan (10.11). I HAVE found varying degrees of stability between them, however. With El Capitan and Mojave being among the most stable that I've ever used. Mojave might be my favorite recent release (and it's a damn shame I can't load it on a 2020 13" MacBook Pro or a 16" MacBook Pro).
 
rafcorporal

rafcorporal

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 12, 2018
22
3
Derby England.
Hi Yebubbleman, thank you for your reply. I have a spare 1tb solid state drive/caddy and in the not too distant future will attempt to make it into an external bootable drive thus eliminating the fitted 1tb spinner/fusion mix inside my iMac.
Regards from Keith in Derby
 
Fishrrman

Fishrrman

macrumors Penryn
Feb 20, 2009
28,458
12,573
If you already have an SSD and an enclosure (or dock), the first thing is to use disk utility to erase the SSD to APFS with GUID partition format. (make sure you go to the view menu and choose "show all devices" so you can see the physical representation for the SSD on the left)

Then download CarbonCopyCloner (again, it's free for 30 days), and clone the contents of the internal drive to the SSD.

Then go to startup disk and select the SSD to be the new boot drive.
Then restart.

Really, that's about it.
 
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