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AlexMaximus

macrumors 65816
Aug 15, 2006
1,232
576
A400M Base
The way how I minimize the risk to make sure hardware works on older Macs is to use only those view brands that have somehow an official third party license or are designed with Apple in mind. These are usually OWC, Sonnet, Satechi, Lacie, Startech, Belkin and a view other ones. It often comes down to to a particular controller chip that is needed to work with Apple default drivers. Chances are high it will work with the one you picked above.
 

Peter Franks

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jun 9, 2011
2,088
97
They're probably going mental due to MRT (which has been a thing since El Capitan) sucking ram in excess of available, and then caching on a rotational drive (which heats it up). Go to Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor, and see what's gobbling CPU and memory. (I put the Monitor on the dock, very useful, like Task Manager on a PC.) Also go to System Preferences > Users, and see what's auto-launching at login/startup. Also examine the contents of the two Library > Launch daemon folders.

Adobe CS6, Logic9, FCP7, most utilities, most games, most shareware. Well over half of all Mac software. And it runs like greased lightning on HFS+ MacOSes on intel chips. For instance, a janky old 2007 blackback iMac with 3gb ram and a 250gb rotational running El Capitan launches CS6 Photoshop Extended in three seconds.
Thank you. It's usually the photo app indexing, don't notice spotlight, unless it's probably under a different name.
Google and any Chrome browser is off the scale, How many 'helpers' do they need? Sometimes there are a ridiculous amount in the list. 8GB memory and 2.3 i5 is what this is, with the SSD which initially was great on Snow Leopard... simpler times. Fan was a bit rubbish then too and came on for like every video online

'Photos Agent' always listed as using 'significant energy' which is mad because I never open or use it
 
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Fishrrman

macrumors Penryn
Feb 20, 2009
29,193
13,243
Peter Franks -

I've seen your postings before, from some years' back.
I'm thinking that you DO NOT want to be fooling with OCLP.

I'm also thinking that with a 2011 MBP, well...
... it's time for a replacement.
Something new (or at least "somewhat newer").

That's my advice and I'm sticking to it.
 
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Peter Franks

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jun 9, 2011
2,088
97
Peter Franks -

I've seen your postings before, from some years' back.
I'm thinking that you DO NOT want to be fooling with OCLP.

I'm also thinking that with a 2011 MBP, well...
... it's time for a replacement.
Something new (or at least "somewhat newer").

That's my advice and I'm sticking to it.
Yes I started this thread in January, and you are correct, but Mng answered it this week who I'm responding to, as they did go into some detail, and yes you're correct, however my money goes on iPhones, and not MBP... still, Wrong I know, what can I tell ya.
 

Minghold

macrumors 6502
Oct 21, 2022
454
269
Thank you. It's usually the photo app indexing, don't notice spotlight, unless it's probably under a different name.
Google and any Chrome browser is off the scale, How many 'helpers' do they need? Sometimes there are a ridiculous amount in the list. 8GB memory and 2.3 i5 is what this is, with the SSD which initially was great on Snow Leopard... simpler times. Fan was a bit rubbish then too and came on for like every video online

'Photos Agent' always listed as using 'significant energy' which is mad because I never open or use it
Get your pictures (and music, and messages) out of Apple's clutches; use 3rd-party organizers, or install Retroactive, and with it allow Aperture to run in Mojave. Uninatall Google Chrome and install Chromium-legacy. Search around for the Terminal command to kill report-crash (Chrome browsers infamously throw that into an infinite loop). Install MacsFanControl (set laptops to Battery Max). Install the following extensions onto ALL web-browsers: uBlock Origin, Adblocker Ultimate, FB Purity.
 
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Peter Franks

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jun 9, 2011
2,088
97
Get your pictures (and music, and messages) out of Apple's clutches; use 3rd-party organizers, or install Retroactive, and with it allow Aperture to run in Mojave. Uninatall Google Chrome and install Chromium-legacy. Search around for the Terminal command to kill report-crash (Chrome browsers infamously throw that into an infinite loop). Install MacsFanControl (set laptops to Battery Max). Install the following extensions onto ALL web-browsers: uBlock Origin, Adblocker Ultimate, FB Purity.
Thank you!!
 
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Minghold

macrumors 6502
Oct 21, 2022
454
269
Peter Franks -I've seen your postings before, from some years' back.
I'm thinking that you DO NOT want to be fooling with OCLP.
Agreed. Here's a snippet from a recent conversation elsewhere:

What's hard-to-reverse about an OCLP/APFS installation btw? You simply erase the drive and install something else as I've done several times.
B.S. Magnet beat me to it: “Sir, this is a Starbucks…” --The average Mac owner (in another thread, I previously estimated at least 90% based upon examination of machines turned in to recyclers) no longer know how to even display their drives on the desktop, as Apple has hidden them by default since the early California OSes.
It's not hard for smart people like you and me, because guys like us have piles of spare externals laying around and generally know what the eff we're doing. But the average user who runs OCLP even once is going to have that bootloader pop-up greeting him permanently thereafter, and if he decides he hates the glacial performance of a 32bit-killing APFS OS and wishes to revert, then setting up an external, Migrating to it, booting from it, wiping the internal, and then cloning back to it.... ...well, because he's average, he'll end up bricking his system at some step along the way, and my phone will start nagging me after midnight because I was an idiot and forgot to turn it off.
I'm also thinking that with a 2011 MBP, well...
... it's time for a replacement.
Something new (or at least "somewhat newer").

That's my advice and I'm sticking to it.
Put in one of these, then Mojave/HFS+ in a generous-sized first partition. Install Parallels for Mac, then explore various Linux and Windows distros in Parallels.
 
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Peter Franks

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jun 9, 2011
2,088
97
Agreed. Here's a snippet from a recent conversation elsewhere:

What's hard-to-reverse about an OCLP/APFS installation btw? You simply erase the drive and install something else as I've done several times.
B.S. Magnet beat me to it: “Sir, this is a Starbucks…” --The average Mac owner (in another thread, I previously estimated at least 90% based upon examination of machines turned in to recyclers) no longer know how to even display their drives on the desktop, as Apple has hidden them by default since the early California OSes.
It's not hard for smart people like you and me, because guys like us have piles of spare externals laying around and generally know what the eff we're doing. But the average user who runs OCLP even once is going to have that bootloader pop-up greeting him permanently thereafter, and if he decides he hates the glacial performance of a 32bit-killing APFS OS and wishes to revert, then setting up an external, Migrating to it, booting from it, wiping the internal, and then cloning back to it.... ...well, because he's average, he'll end up bricking his system at some step along the way, and my phone will start nagging me after midnight because I was an idiot and forgot to turn it off.

Put in one of these, then Mojave/HFS+ in a generous-sized first partition. Install Parallels for Mac, then explore various Linux and Windows distros in Parallels.
I've got a 500 Samsung SSD, but now regret not getting the 1TB
 
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Minghold

macrumors 6502
Oct 21, 2022
454
269
I've got a 500 Samsung SSD, but now regret not getting the 1TB
My main machine is a 2013 27" i7 iMac running a 500gb SSD internal with an old 2TB rotational external. I have CCC5 set up to clone the internal to a 500gb partition on the external once a day, to a second 500gb partition once a week, and a third once per month. (IOW, I have three bootable backups.) The last 500gb is for downloading spillover.
 
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one1

macrumors 65816
Jun 17, 2007
1,174
29
Chattanooga, TN
IDK if it is worth a new thread with this one going so well, but I have a question on OCLP.

I'd like to run Sonoma or Sequoia on my 15" 2017 MBP. Is this for me and will either install with OCLP?
 
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Peter Franks

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jun 9, 2011
2,088
97
My main machine is a 2013 27" i7 iMac running a 500gb SSD internal with an old 2TB rotational external. I have CCC5 set up to clone the internal to a 500gb partition on the external once a day, to a second 500gb partition once a week, and a third once per month. (IOW, I have three bootable backups.) The last 500gb is for downloading spillover.
because you know what you're doing! I still like the USBs and the fact I have the disc drive, and know that a newer MBP is the answer... but mortgage and council tax both 4 times what they were 18 months ago, so I battle on! Thanks again.
 

Peter Franks

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jun 9, 2011
2,088
97
IDK if it is worth a new thread with this one going so well, but I have a question on OCLP.

I'd like to run Sonoma or Sequoia on my 15" 2017 MBP. Is this for me and will either install with OCLP?
2017 that's gotta be a much more doable option than my old 2011, I'm sure someone on this thread will deffo guide you on that.
 
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Minghold

macrumors 6502
Oct 21, 2022
454
269
I'd like to run Sonoma or Sequoia on my 15" 2017 MBP. Is this for me and will either install with OCLP?
Well, you think you do, and there certainly is a crowd-and-a-half around desirous of convincing you to.

Don't, because it's a one-way trip (into slugville) for the "privilege" of running 2024 Adobe bloatware that is 95% identical to the 2016 cc version that ran fine on El Capitan. One-way because, unless you're very experience with creating bootable external clones, you may not be able to easily restore the OS you had previously. (This is why nothing-really-wrong=with-them 2017 27" iMacs with rotational drives get turned into recyclers, where I pick them up for sometimes under a hundred bucks.)

(The fastest machine I currently own is a 2019 i9 screamer with a 1tb SSD, and I run Mojave/HFS+ on it. Photoshop CS6 Entended launch-time is one-half second. In Mojave, I have Waterfox and Chromium-legacy for modern browsers, and have Parallels 18 to instead any number of Windows or Linux versions in hypervirtualization, --And I'm probably going to sell that machine because I don't render graphics or need or desire bleeding-edge subscription-model suites, and it's therefore overkill when the exact same OS configuration runs perfectly fine on a 2012 imac, or even a pokey spinner-drive'd 4gb 2009 silverkey 15" MBP with a DosDude1 tweak.
 
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