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Upgrade safe from Sierra > High Sierra

stu.h

stu.h

macrumors 65816
Original poster
May 8, 2010
1,386
582
West Midlands, England.
Evening!
Looking at upgrading my 2015 MBP to HS now, are all the initial niggles ironed out and is it pretty stable now?
If so, does anyone have a link to the latest release with patches included as I will be doing a fresh install from a USB stick.
TIA!
 
I would say no.....
From what I have read there are still issues people are having (like APFS).
If you need to upgrade just go to the app store.
 
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You'd be safe IMO, but the changes are minimal - in fact hardly noticeable. High Sierra in my subjective experience is slightly more demanding in terms of battery life and CPU power. I would wait another month or so for the next update, if I were you.
 
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This question is now being asked many many times in many different forms. IMHO - YES!!!!

Lou
 
I think if your doing a fresh install it should be ok.
When I move to HS it will be an upgrade, so there’s more at stake, with converting my drive and incompatible software with APFS.
I installed it on a blank hdd in my cmp and all seems fine, but will stay with Sierra for now.
 
I don't use my MacBook as a laptop just as a powerhouse for my 4k screen.
A 5K iMac at 27"? No thanks.
... and I don't do scaled .. Pointless.... :p
 
stu.h said:
I don't use my MacBook as a laptop just as a powerhouse for my 4k screen.
A 5K iMac at 27"? No thanks.
... and I don't do scaled .. Pointless.... :p
Click to expand...

I would also add that in my experience HS has better GPU performance. That's on my MBP with Iris Pro. Metal 2 seems good on it. Though Endless Space exhibits a lot of graphical issues not present on my Sierra iMac.
 
I didn't convert my SSD to APFS when I upgraded to High Sierra and I still use Sierra most of the time. I can't recommend APFS at this moment.
 
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Honestly? No. I would not recommend it. There's too many weird issues that come and go, like random 100% cpu usage by certain websites that never used to use as much cpu and poor battery life.
 
You're going to get both ends of the scale here. I'd do it for the security alone. Personally I've upgraded an iMac 5K, Macbook Pro and MacBook and they're all running fine.
 
IMO, there is always a risk to any software upgrade. There are just too many variables on the particulars of the state of your system. No magic bullets... In my case I have not done a clean install on any computer I've been using and have upgraded way back to the OS X beta. My only quasi-'clean' upgrades have been a few full migrations (including Applications) to new computers. In my case, I keep full TimeMachineBackups, as well as two CarbonCopyCloaner backups of all User directories to remote disks of the User directories.

If you have the time and think you want the new OS, you should be alright it you have good TimeMachine and at least a second, separate backup of important files. If you find you are experiencing problems you can recover to your state before the upgrade and all you have lost is the time, probably a few/several hours...

I did have to do a full TimeMachine recovery once many years ago when I was overseas and had a System disk failure, but I do not recall ever having to recover from an OS upgrade... IIRC, I obtained system from Apple servers and all other files from the TimeMachine.
 
stu.h said:
Evening!
Looking at upgrading my 2015 MBP to HS now, are all the initial niggles ironed out and is it pretty stable now?
If so, does anyone have a link to the latest release with patches included as I will be doing a fresh install from a USB stick.
TIA!
Click to expand...

I have a 2015 MBP too. I just did the normal MAS upgrade. The only issue I had was not all the icons were showing correctly. A reboot in and out of safe mode fixed that. I haven't had any other issues.
 
No issues here. APFS is running fine. I did an upgrade from Sierra from the first beta. No issues, no need for a clean install IMO.
 
What are your upgrading for?

Is there a particular feature of HS that appeals to your work ± play on the computer. Is Sierra not doing the job in some way?

Or are you just sick of the Apple notification with a close box telling you to upgrade

I would upgrade when there are some significant advantages for you, not just when it is safe to do so.
 
I've been concerned about upgrading my late 2015 5K 27 iMac, primarily because I run off an external TB SSD and I've heard mixed reports about how safe it is. I have multiple clones and backups and I did update my MB Air without issue since the SSD was internal. Converted to APFS w/o issue.

Just not sure whether it's worth the risk.
 
So it is possible to move to HS without using the new file system? Will have to do more research on that.
 
Yes, I have read a thread here about using hfs+ on an ssd drive, using the terminal.

I know of one application I have which doesn’t work with apfs file system, there must be others?
I am assuming you could install a vm of sierra on an hdd (cmp) to run any incompatible software if you went with apfs.
 
panzer06 said:
I've been concerned about upgrading my late 2015 5K 27 iMac, primarily because I run off an external TB SSD and I've heard mixed reports about how safe it is. I have multiple clones and backups and I did update my MB Air without issue since the SSD was internal. Converted to APFS w/o issue.
Click to expand...

If you think the file system will cause issues you can always just install HS on HFS+

MarkC426 said:
Yes, I have read a thread here about using hfs+ on an ssd drive, using the terminal.

I know of one application I have which doesn’t work with apfs file system, there must be others?
I am assuming you could install a vm of sierra on an hdd (cmp) to run any incompatible software if you went with apfs.
Click to expand...

No Terminal necessary. When I updated my MacBook Pro, during the update, a prompt popped up asking if I would like to convert my drive to APFS, or install HS without changing the file system - I mean, it may have changed since the .0 release, but I don't see why it would.
 
casperes1996 said:
If you think the file system will cause issues you can always just install HS on HFS+



No Terminal necessary. When I updated my MacBook Pro, during the update, a prompt popped up asking if I would like to convert my drive to APFS, or install HS without changing the file system - I mean, it may have changed since the .0 release, but I don't see why it would.
Click to expand...

On my MB Air it didn't ask, just did the upgrade and after a couple of reboots came up with the new file system installed.

I think for now I'll just leave it on Sierra until I have a weekend where I'm not working to play around with it.
 
OP:

How's your current install of Low Sierra running?
Is it "fair", "good", or "excellent" for you?

If excellent, are you willing to risk the hazards of "upgrading" to an as-yet-work-in-progress High Sierra?
Only YOU can answer that question.

That said, I'm going to give you the best advice you'll EVER get here at MacRumors:
If you DO decide to upgrade, take the time to use either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper (both are FREE to download and use for 30 days) to create a bootable cloned backup of your current (Low Sierra) installation (on an external drive).

If something goes wrong with the High Sierra install, or if it doesn't perform up to your expectations, having a bootable cloned backup makes it EASY to "get back, get back, get back to where you once belonged".

If you DON'T take the time to create a cloned backup, you can still "get back" -- but it's NOT going to be "easy"...
 
casperes1996 said:
If you think the file system will cause issues you can always just install HS on HFS+



No Terminal necessary. When I updated my MacBook Pro, during the update, a prompt popped up asking if I would like to convert my drive to APFS, or install HS without changing the file system - I mean, it may have changed since the .0 release, but I don't see why it would.
Click to expand...
I am pretty sure that prompt was only in the first few betas. I believe it does not even ask if it sees a SSD.
 
LarryJoe33 said:
I am pretty sure that prompt was only in the first few betas. I believe it does not even ask if it sees a SSD.
Click to expand...

Pretty sure I updated from the .0 release version. I also had the betas, but reverted back after the thirds, so maybe I'm wrong. Regardless, if they don't ask anymore that's that
 
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