Should I update OS on Mac Mini late 2009

[derek4484]

I have a mac mini late 2009. It has the C2D at 2.26 GHz. I have upgraded the RAM to 8GB and installed a 7200RPM 500GB HDD in it. It's currently at 10.6.8. I've been contemplating going to Mountain Lion. I think it's only 19.99 correct?

I really only use it for web surfing, emailing, doing some office work. Nothing too heavy on it as it's in the family room. I have several more powerful Win 7 PC's in the computer room.

I should also add that I run Virtual Box on it with a Win XP virtual machine that I use a good bit.

I'd like to get some other opinions from more seasoned Mac users. Should I upgrade this to the latest OS? I've heard and read some stuff that say Mountain Lion is MUCH more of a resource hog than Snow Leopard.

Thanks!

 

[mdgm]

Clone your HDD to an external drive. That way if you don't like the newer OS you can easily go back.

Upgrade and see how you like it.

Over time less and less app updates will support 10.6. Also once 10.9 comes out Apple will likely no longer provide security updates for Snow Leopard.

 

[cyclotron451]

it's a complicated question!

considering your uses "web surfing, emailing, doing some office work" -

★ Web Surfing would improve in ML
(somewhat better system/browser security/sandboxing/signature checked apps)
★ e-mailing isn't particularly better in ML
(RSS was removed - my inbox & Junk mail folders & filtering rules have sometimes become confused in ML builds)
★ office work - probably similar to 10.6.8
(ML still has Pages '09 V4.3, Word is still v.11 14.3.x - and seems to have slight bugs in 10.8.3 v.12D78)

Resource-use, entirely depends on which webpage thrashes with Safari Web content (=Flash) or PepperFlashPlayer (Chrome Host Plug-In) which are at present using 161% of my available CPUs. Using Chrome instead of Safari on 10.6.8 will give you a safer web-experience - but add the Ad Block Plus before Google ban it further than on mobile.

One killer bad effect that I found via ML was a C2D 2GHz 2007 iMac that I upgraded from 10.6.8 -> 10.7 all OK, Lion wasn't that great, so I upgraded free to ML (I'm an beta-tester) and the iMac was good/great in blatantly unfinished 10.8.0. I upgraded OK to 10.8.1. Then upgraded to official release of 10.8.2 and the iMac never recovered from the install reboot, FAIL. I spent three months diagnosing the failure , multiple downgrades to 10.6 then all the way up to 10.6.8 but I could no-longer get back to 10.7.x or 10.8.x. I installed/formatted new terabyte HDD & the iMac ran WinXP great, Ubuntu great - but wouldn't go anywhere near Lion or ML.
Turns out that one of the FW400 ports is faulty (slightly) broken by a student who plugged years ago a FW400 cable in upside down! small bang! The iMac carried on working for years - but the logs tell me now that ML will not install now due to this "major system fault", which it isn't.

stick an 128GB Hitachi 430 SSD into your 2009 Mini and it'll scream - ML might work but it might discover some slight out-of-tolerance something and then you could have problems....hope not, good luck!