Upgrading from 10.7 on late Q3 2011 27" iMac i7

[BarkingGhost]

Its been about 4.5 years since I bought my wife a 27" iMac i7. It came installed with Lion and I have been too scared to upgrade the operating system. For the past three years or so I have been using TimeCapsule via an external USB hard drive, but I wonder about what precautions I made need to focus on before seriously upgrading the OS X environment.

First and foremost is the need to protect the wife's data. Then there is the potential impact of installed software (Lightroom, Office, ACDSee, etc.) being effected by the operating system being upgraded. Lastly, I wonder about how system performance might change [for the worse] if I do upgrade. I did add 16GB of RAM to the factory installed 4GB, but one might say the CPU could be getting long in the tooth.

I have previously purchased/acquired, but not installed, Mountain Lion and Mavericks. Any thoughts on the coming approach of all things paranoid?

 

[Ebenezum]

I wonder why you want upgrade to newer OS?

If Lion works for you there is no reason to upgrade.

I am not saying Lion is good OS X version, on the contrary its widely regarded as one of the worst OS X versions Apple has released.

 

[BarkingGhost]

Wife uses both Firefox and Google's Chrome web browsers. Both had specific plugins and she is use to them. Google stopped officially supporting 10.7/8 as of last November. I doubt we'll see remorse, but just saying that with this note and what you just said, Ebenezum there might be reason to move forward.

What I am concerned with, other than what I said previously is go from 10.7 --> 10.11, or is there some underlying considerations for not doing it. I know I have ML and Mavericks sitting in the software store purchased bucket, but ...

The only last consideration is what happens in a catastrophic hardware failure?

 

[simon lefisch]

I wonder why you want upgrade to newer OS?

Security updates being the main reason.

 

[Ritsuka]

I have the same iMac an it runs 10.11 with no issues at all.

 

[BarkingGhost]

I have the same iMac an it runs 10.11 with no issues at all.

Did you go from 10.7 to 10.11 directly, or was it incremental?

 

[Ebenezum]

Wife uses both Firefox and Google's Chrome web browsers. Both had specific plugins and she is use to them. Google stopped officially supporting 10.7/8 as of last November. I doubt we'll see remorse, but just saying that with this note and what you just said, Ebenezum there might be reason to move forward.

What I am concerned with, other than what I said previously is go from 10.7 --> 10.11, or is there some underlying considerations for not doing it. I know I have ML and Mavericks sitting in the software store purchased bucket, but ...

The only last consideration is what happens in a catastrophic hardware failure?

Since your iMac has i7 processor it will work hardware wise (with older Core 2 Duo processors results would be different). I recommend checking software compatibility first because odds are some / most of the installed software won't be compatible without spending lots of € to upgrades...

While Chrome is no longer supported Firefox is still supported so you might not have to upgrade. Or is there some plugin that works only in Chrome and not Firefox?

Alternatively you could upgrade to Mavericks which is at the moment more reliable compared to 10.11 and less likely to have problems with incompatible software.

Security updates being the main reason.

Yes but if software isn't compatible it isn't very practical to upgrade if one uses expensive software...

 

[Gregg2]

Did you go from 10.7 to 10.11 directly, or was it incremental?

Not sure that would matter.