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When Mavericks is released: Upgrade or fresh install?

O

opinio

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Mar 23, 2013
1,171
7
In the past I have done fresh installs of OS X when moving from say 10.3 to 10.4.

I know a few say just upgrade but I always feel there are remnants of the old OS if you do that so I do a wipe and download a complete OS.

Any thoughts from those devs working with the Mavericks at the moment?

Also I plan (when it is released) to do the following:

Boot from external OS --> wipe the fusion (recovery drive and all) in my 2012 Mac mini through disk utility --> Boot to Internet Recovery in the mini and install Mavericks from there. I then re-build the OS apps from scratch as I like to do that every year or so anyway (for fun - throw out the old, in with the new).

Will this work (through internet recovery) or will I be forced to DL the original OS first (ML) before downloading Mavericks?

Any comments appreciated.
 
I've installed every version of OS X from 10.3 upwards onto existing installations.
I've done 3 wipe-and-installs in 10 years, and probably only one of them was necessary.

I dare say I've still got some cruft from 10.2 that's Migrated across all the Macs I've used to my latest one --more likely to be in the user account than the system.

Meh.

opinio said:
I always feel there are remnants of the old OS
Click to expand...
Trust your feelings less, Luke. As I said, most of what you feel is probably coming from prefs in the user account.

opinio said:
Also I plan to:
wipe the fusion (recovery drive and all) in my 2012 Mac mini through disk utility --> Boot to Internet Recovery in the mini and install Mavericks from there.
Click to expand...
Dear God, why would you delete the Recovery Partition? The Recovery Partition downloads the latest version of the OS. There's absolutely no benefit.

opinio said:
I then re-build the OS apps from scratch as I like to do that every year or so anyway (for fun - throw out the old, in with the new).
Click to expand...
There are easier and more fun ways to maintain your apps than delete them all and reinstall every year.
 
Last edited:
benwiggy said:
Dear God, why would you delete the Recovery Partition?
Click to expand...

Dear God, why would anyone want to download an entire OS over the innerwebz?

Some of us install from bootable externals or USB drives. Personally, I just get tired of looking at an unneeded partition so I nuke it. :)
 
Krazy Bill said:
Dear God, why would anyone want to download an entire OS over the innerwebz?
Some of us install from bootable externals or USB drives. Personally, I just get tired of looking at an unneeded partition so I nuke it. :)
Click to expand...
The RP guarantees you have the latest build with all security fixes.
How do you make your USB disk WITHOUT downloading all the files (and keeping it up-to-date) from the internet?

Unless you're imaging a whole set of Macs, you are unlikely to need the speed advantage of a USB on the 1 time you need to reinstall the OS.

Of course, if you really need that 650Mb of free space, fill your boots.
 
Krazy Bill said:
Dear God, why would anyone want to download an entire OS over the innerwebz?

Some of us install from bootable externals or USB drives. Personally, I just get tired of looking at an unneeded partition so I nuke it. :)
Click to expand...

I do the same thing. The last thing I want is unnecessary space taken up on my internal Fusion Drive (180GB SSD+500GB HDD). (And it's a Mac mini. I'm not worried about Find My Mac.)

Instead, I have an external 1TB USB 3.0 HDD with other files, and I keep a recovery partition on it. I have a 4TB Time Machine drive with a recovery partition. And I have two drives (1.5TB and 2TB) on which I keep rotated CCC backups of both my internal and external working drives, and I have everything on each of those needed to reclone both of my working drives.
 
benwiggy said:
I've installed every version of OS X from 10.3 upwards onto existing installations.
I've done 3 wipe-and-installs in 10 years, and probably only one of them was necessary.

I dare say I've still got some cruft from 10.2 that's Migrated across all the Macs I've used to my latest one --more likely to be in the user account than the system.

Meh.


Trust your feelings less, Luke. As I said, most of what you feel is probably coming from prefs in the user account.


Dear God, why would you delete the Recovery Partition? The Recovery Partition downloads the latest version of the OS. There's absolutely no benefit.


There are easier and more fun ways to maintain your apps than delete them all and reinstall every year.
Click to expand...

I format the drive completely and let the new OS build a new recovery partition. I still have a recovery. I just let the new install rebuild it.

----------
Krazy Bill said:
Dear God, why would anyone want to download an entire OS over the innerwebz?

Some of us install from bootable externals or USB drives. Personally, I just get tired of looking at an unneeded partition so I nuke it. :)
Click to expand...

You still have to get the OS from somewhere in the first place? Anyway it only takes me 15mins to DL the 4.5GB OS.
 
Guys, when you are doing the clean install/format, do you copy all your stuff from the Mac somwhere else, and copy it back after all process is complete?

I pressume, you have to re-install all MacAppStore apps + all apps bought outside MAS.

All program setting will be deleted, am I right?

I come from Linux where I had all my stuff on /home which was a separate partition with all program settings + my stuff. After format etc, there was no need to copy anything back, just to reinstall apps.
 
anarti said:
Guys, when you are doing the clean install/format, do you copy all your stuff from the Mac somwhere else, and copy it back after all process is complete?

I pressume, you have to re-install all MacAppStore apps + all apps bought outside MAS.

All program setting will be deleted, am I right?

I come from Linux where I had all my stuff on /home which was a separate partition with all program settings + my stuff. After format etc, there was no need to copy anything back, just to reinstall apps.
Click to expand...

Yes,

After a clean install, its like when you took you mac right out of the box, however when you start syncing with iCloud, it will put SOME stuff back into place.

I imagine if someone has upgraded from each release of OSX from 10.2 and UP (especially if using developer releases) there will be some remnants of "stuff" that might not be needed. I would be more worried about remnants of other apps preferences and "junk" left behind from long forgotten or unused programs. (think about the 2.5 gigs of audio samples that comes with Garage Band, and honestly, how many people actually USE that apps?) If you just dragged GarageBand to the trash, you will still have that large portion of space wasted.)
 
My baby is an Early 2011 MBP so I got it with Snow Leopard.
This summer I updated to Lion (got Lion for free in 2011, but there was absolutely no reason to update) - this update wasn't a clean install.

When Mavericks will be released, first I will only update. When I have university break around christmas I will perform a clean install.

Can't wait for Mavericks.
 
I have Mavericks DP1-8 on a separate partition How do I combine OSX Mountain Lion and Mavericks when Mavericks is released
 
For friends/clients I've always done upgrade installs and never had a problem.

For my own machines however I've also always done upgrade installs, but I've
always regretted it down the line and wish I'd done a clean install. I have a ton of development software on my machines and it's just a total mess. Xcode, HomeBrew, Macports, vagrant, grunt, etc... etc.. What would be cool is scripting it all like this guy: http://vanderveer.be/blog/2013/01/0...er-environment-on-osx-10-dot-8-mountain-lion/ and then I'd just wipe my machine every 6 months.... hmmm...
 
anarti said:
Guys, when you are doing the clean install/format, do you copy all your stuff from the Mac somwhere else, and copy it back after all process is complete?

I pressume, you have to re-install all MacAppStore apps + all apps bought outside MAS.

All program setting will be deleted, am I right?

I come from Linux where I had all my stuff on /home which was a separate partition with all program settings + my stuff. After format etc, there was no need to copy anything back, just to reinstall apps.
Click to expand...

OS X like Linux has a /home folder..if your feeling all froggy you can even share your /home across two different OS X installs.

Many of the paradigms are the same between Linux and OS X as they have some shared DNA
 
jb510 said:
then I'd just wipe my machine every 6 months....
Click to expand...
Every six months? :eek: Why? It's like knocking down your house and rebuilding it just because it needs painting.

OK, if you've got lots of unixy stuff, then a clean install might be worthwhile to get rid of it all and start again.

But generally, there's absolutely no need to do a clean install regularly, as part of some scheduled "maintenance".

I know a lot of Windows users who take pride in the fact that they reinstall their entire disk every year, like spring cleaning. I just look at them with confused incredulity, and thank god I run an OS that is designed for long-term use.
 
Maybe clean installs were beneficial years ago, but now it is absolutely unnecessary to wipe your hard drive to upgrade from 10.x to 10.y. It would only be necessary if your current install is corrupt and not functioning properly.
 
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