Sierra <> Catalina

[sfphoto]

Hello all-

Am using Sierra, considering Catalina. 2012 Mini, 1GB HD, 16GB Ram. Runs great. Use mainly for photo editing.

Thinking if Sierra HD is upgraded the change to APFS from HFS+ might present problems. Image files in a different partition, scratch disk another.

Lots of apps are 32 bit, I assume these will not work.

The 64 bit apps are from 2016 or older, will they work just as well as they did with Sierra?

Comments/Suggestions appreciated.

 

[Juicy Box]

Why do you want to use Catalina? If you are looking for a newer OS, High Sierra is solid and runs great on a HDD. Mojave also is solid, but may not run as well on a HDD as High Sierra.

Catalina runs like a turd on a HDD.

Lots of apps are 32 bit, I assume these will not work.

Nope, they will not work.

Comments/Suggestions appreciated.

I wouldn't put Catalina on a HDD, at least not the drive you plan on using to regularly boot with. I would either use an external SSD (you can do this really cheap), or update the internal drive to a SSD. But, update the firmware on your internal HDD first....

It might be better to upgrade the internal drive to at least High Sierra, but Mojave or Catalina would work as well. This would install the most recent firmware.

Have bootable back ups. I like to use CCC to do this, as it is easy and cheap. You can always keep a bootable back up of an older OS incase you need to go back to use a 32-bit OS. Bootable back ups are also nice to have for troubleshooting.

1GB HD

Do you mean 1TB HDD?

 

[sfphoto]

Thanks for your comments. Responses below.


> Why do you want to use Catalina?

There are some newer programs I would like that require 10.15 or newer


> I wouldn't put Catalina on a HDD

My plan was to clone 10.12 to an external SSD then upgrade such to 10.15
If I find 10.15 is working fine and that I can live w/o the 32bit apps (or upgrade them) then would put the SSD in the Mini. Am concerned about the change to APFS from HFS+? As I understand it installing 10.15 will update the HFS+ file structure.

> Have bootable back ups

Do have - of 10.12