I just got a new MacBook Pro 13 Retina. I'm looking forward to tomorrow as most of us I think are. However, I'm wondering if it's better to upgrade or perform a fresh install. On my iPhone I usually do a DFU upgrade for the major releases but I'm not sure about the Mac. What do you recommend? If you recommend a fresh upgrade is there a guide on how to do it? Thanks so much.
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Upgrade or Fresh Install?
- Thread starter nmeed
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I plan to do a full TM backup and then an upgrade install. If there is trouble, I can always do a clean install later. I've been installing the Cappy beta on a fresh drive, saving Yosemite for production. I'm still hearing that some people are having problems with external USB/FW drives, that will be a deal breaker for me. I'm expecting it to work well as an upgrade. I hope I'm not disappointed.
Yes, I still can't get my USB receiver for TurningPoint 5 to work with any of my three machines with El Capitan. It works fine with Yosemite.
Hopefully tomorrow's release will have resolved this. Otherwise I'll have to wait for a fix.
If your current setup is not having any issues, then a upgrade install will likely work fine for you and a fresh install would be a lot of work and complete waste of time.
Like others mentioned, just do a Time Machine backup and install away.
Thanks for the replies. Unfortunately I don't have the external hard drive for a Time Machine backup. It's basically a new system I just installed a few apps. Although the temperature monitoring apps basically don't refresh expect once every blue moon so I was hoping w clean install would fix that. Is there any advantage to a terminal boot drive?
There is really nothing magical about a clean install. If for example, the temp monitoring app is not working now, and you do a clean install and then reinstall the same app, it likely won't work then either.
Not sure what you mean by the last "terminal boot drive" comment? Do you mean using Terminal to make a USB installer with El Capitan? See here for a how to.
That's exactly what I meant. Thank you. A part of me feels like since its new anyway might as well go all in with a fresh install. I'm weird like that I guess. I really don't know. Then again another part says it's better to keep the factory OS on. I know what I'm saying is absolutely nuts lol but what can I say...
Out of curiosity, how many gigabytes would a backup take up? Does it take all the system files or just like the personal details ala iCloud? Or to cut to the chase, would it fit on a 16 or a 32fb flash drive? Again I really don't have anything on it.
Sorry to be asking so many questions, but would an SMC reset fix the temperature reading issue? I've tried several apps and they seem to update once every 20 minutes or so. There is no constant change in the temperatures.
The fact your machine is new with very little in the way of third party apps installed, actually argues against a clean install.
The idea of a clean install is it gets rid of remnants of old apps you may have installed and not completely deleted properly. If you have a new machine you have not installed much of anything on there, you really are wasting your time with a clean install.
Time Machine backs up the entire drive including the OS. So how ever much space your entire disk is now using, a TM backup would use that amount. A USB key will work for this, but is not ideal. Those USB keys tend to have low end controllers in them and cheap memory chips, making them unreliable for long term backup usually. If that is all you have now, it is better than nothing. But long term you should get yourself an external hard drive for this.
An SMC reset will not likely fix that app. I would not be surprised it that app won't work at all under El Capitan. El Capitan implements some new security measures that restrict ways certain third party kext files can access the system, and most of those temp apps use a kext file to access the temp readouts.
Is there some problem you are having that you want to run such an app? I would just delete than thing and ignore the temps. If your Mac overheats it will shut itself down.
Always do fresh install to get the best intended performance and experience.
You have been more then helpful. I really appreciate it. Thank you.
I have installed maybe in total around 15 apps of which I have deleted about 6-8. Those include tiny battery health monitoring apps. Each time though I used Easyfinder to find the app remnants and delete them.
In regards to the temperature, i put a case on it, and I'm worried that it will insulate the temperatures. That's what started me on the temperature path. Is it normal on Macs the temps don't update like constantly? In any case, thanks to you and to all!
I don't use any of those apps, so can't say for sure. I have in the past though noticed a lot of posts from others having trouble with those apps.
I did an in-place install of iOS 9 over 8 on several devices. It went better than previous in place installs. That being said, I DFU (clean) installed 9.0.1. Definitely a better experience. The in-place installs have come a long way, but clean installs are the way for me, especially with the ease of cloud storage these days