Should I switch to 10.6.8 from 10.10?

[yesjam]

My #1 computer is a mid-2010 27" iMac with a 2.93 Ghz Core i7 processor, 16 gb of RAM, and a 1 TB HDD. My iMac shipped with OS X 10.6. I have been going through the Apple OS X upgrade system since, and have used Lion, Mountain Lion, Mavericks, and now Yosemite. Last night, I re-installed Snow Leopard on a hard drive partition, and was reminded of how efficient that OS was upon using it for the first time in approximately 4 years. In terms of OS optimization, I am incredibly impressed with Snow Leopard. However, I know that subsequent releases have added useful new features, and I want to be entirely sure about my decision to downgrade before I take the plunge.

So I'm asking all of you: should I "downgrade" from Yosemite to Snow Leopard? What would I lose? What would I gain? Is it worth it? Would El Capitan restore the performance gains I would have from downgrading to Snow Leopard? Thanks a lot.

 

[patternjake]

No, don't do it, you lose compatibility with the newer mac apps, and there's so many optimisations made to OS X and features since then. It's the equivalent of using Vista instead of Windows 7 SP1 (idc) . Upgrade to Yosemite and wait for El Cap, it will be well worth the upgrade, and on an i7 processor it will make better use of it!

 

[Gregg2]

I still use Snow Leopard and am completely satisfied with it. But my Mac, that's another story. It's old and slow, and cannot run anything higher than Lion anyway. I've been putting off buying a new Mac, but I'm getting the itch...

 

[patternjake]

Any Mac from mid 2012 are excellent build quality and fast performers. They do have a modest price tag but they ARE the best computers your money could buy. Just do yourself and me a favour. Don't buy a Alienware or DELL crap, they fry easy. Trust me, I've been there.

 

[MJWMac1988]

So I'm asking all of you: should I "downgrade" from Yosemite to Snow Leopard? What would I lose? What would I gain? Is it worth it? Would El Capitan restore the performance gains I would have from downgrading to Snow Leopard? Thanks a lot.

If you've downloaded a bunch of apps since installing 10.7 through 10.10, some of them may be incompatible with Snow Leopard.

I absolutely love Snow Leopard. I'm still using it. I've used Lion, Mountain Lion and Mavericks (I have Mavericks on a separate partition). None of them are quite as fast, efficient and trouble free as Snow Leopard. I'm not fond of some of their arbitrary interface and functionality changes either (understatement).

Why can't you just leave Snow Leopard on the partition that you have it on now, and install El Capitan on your primary partition? I have Snow Leopard on my primary partition and Mavericks on my secondary partition, and I use whichever one I want/need to use at a particular time. I may install El Capitan on an external hard drive once I'm entirely sure its firmware updater won't permanently affect how my iMac handles Snow Leopard (mainly the boot up process).