Worries about upgrading my OS

[Ambrosia7177]

I have Mountain Lion running on a 2012 MBP 9.2

Apple keeps prompting me to upgrade to a free version of El Capitan.

I'm torn about what to do...

On one hand, I don't want to change anything on my old MBP, because things work fine now. On the other hand, there is an important piece of software that I need for work that will not run on Mountain Lion.

I am looking into getting another MBP, but in the mean time I don't want to trash what I have.

BTW, I do use CCC weekly, so I guess that would provide a back.

Any advice on this?

 

[garirry]

I'm not sure if CCC allows restoring to previous backups (the ones that are older than the current one), if yes, then that's good, if no, then get a Time Machine backup because it can do that.

Generally, I'd say that you should upgrade because you'll get much more compatibility for a longer period of time, and El Capitan has proven to be a very stable OS from my, and others' experience. There's Sierra coming out in a few months but I guess that it's not going to be as stable and it's not that necessary.

However, if you're actually planning to get a new computer in the next months and you don't need to upgrade, there's really no point in doing that. Apple's apparently planning to release a new redesign of the MBP this year maybe, so you may want to wait for that.

 

[Ambrosia7177]

I'm not sure if CCC allows restoring to previous backups (the ones that are older than the current one), if yes, then that's good, if no, then get a Time Machine backup because it can do that.

Generally, I'd say that you should upgrade because you'll get much more compatibility for a longer period of time, and El Capitan has proven to be a very stable OS from my, and others' experience. There's Sierra coming out in a few months but I guess that it's not going to be as stable and it's not that necessary.

However, if you're actually planning to get a new computer in the next months and you don't need to upgrade, there's really no point in doing that. Apple's apparently planning to release a new redesign of the MBP this year maybe, so you may want to wait for that.

What I am debating is whether i should get another MBP that is more modern in setup and keep my current MBP as-is, or if I should save a couple thousand dollars and chance just upgrading my old MBP until I can justify actually get another laptop.

I thought El Capitan had a lot of problems? Was that in the early days?

As far as CCC, it makes a clone, and that goes on another HDD, so in theory if El Capitan was a fluke, I could just install my other cloned HDD and be back to where I was per-upgrade.

 

[Apple fanboy]

What I am debating is whether i should get another MBP that is more modern in setup and keep my current MBP as-is, or if I should save a couple thousand dollars and chance just upgrading my old MBP until I can justify actually get another laptop.

I thought El Capitan had a lot of problems? Was that in the early days?

As far as CCC, it makes a clone, and that goes on another HDD, so in theory if El Capitan was a fluke, I could just install my other cloned HDD and be back to where I was per-upgrade.

Why not update to El Capitan on a different drive, then boot from that to see if all performs well? Then if it's no good for you, just revert to using your internal.

 

[garirry]

What I am debating is whether i should get another MBP that is more modern in setup and keep my current MBP as-is, or if I should save a couple thousand dollars and chance just upgrading my old MBP until I can justify actually get another laptop.

I thought El Capitan had a lot of problems? Was that in the early days?

As far as CCC, it makes a clone, and that goes on another HDD, so in theory if El Capitan was a fluke, I could just install my other cloned HDD and be back to where I was per-upgrade.

If you don't need a MBP and you're just unsure whether you should upgrade, then definitely save a few thousand dollars and upgrade to El Capitan. There are actually very few problems with it today, much less than Yosemite and is probably one of the most stable OSes since Lion.

Why not update to El Capitan on a different drive, then boot from that to see if all performs well? Then if it's no good for you, just revert to using your internal.

The thing is that if he has an external hard drive it'll be much slower than the internal SSD to begin with, which is already good enough of a reason as to why upgrade on the main storage.

 

[Ambrosia7177]

If you don't need a MBP and you're just unsure whether you should upgrade, then definitely save a few thousand dollars and upgrade to El Capitan. There are actually very few problems with it today, much less than Yosemite and is probably one of the most stable OSes since Lion.

The thing is that if he has an external hard drive it'll be much slower than the internal SSD to begin with, which is already good enough of a reason as to why upgrade on the main storage.

I think I am behind the times on how companies deal with operating systems.

1.) If I upgrade to El Capitan, do I need software keys or something? I don't have any of my original packaging, and don't even know if I have the CD or whatever my OS came on?


2.) If I upgrade to El Capitan, how long will it take? And how much data will it take? (I get my Internet through a hotspot and am afraid I will blow my monthly data-plan.)


3.) If I upgrade to El Capitan, can I still use CCC? Or will I get into licensing issues?


4.) If I ever need a clean install of everything, how would I do that? Truth be told, I am not sure how to even rebuild things with Mountain Lion? Did I get a CD with my laptop when I bought it?


5.) Anything else I need to be worried about? I am used to having a legal copy of the OS on CD and being able to rebuild things as often as you like with no issues. I have no clue how all of this works in the modern world!

 

[Borin]

I can't speak for #3, but:

1.) No. As long as you can run the installer provided by the MAS, you're good to go.

2.) From the few older machines I've updated to El Cap., it's taken an average of half an hour for the install itself. The installer itself is 6.21GB - you can figure out from that whether or not your plan can handle it.

4.) https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201314 is how it's done these days. Internet recovery can reinstall the version of OS X that your Mac shipped with if you don't have backups etc, but it has to download it.

 

[garirry]

I think I am behind the times on how companies deal with operating systems.

1.) If I upgrade to El Capitan, do I need software keys or something? I don't have any of my original packaging, and don't even know if I have the CD or whatever my OS came on?


2.) If I upgrade to El Capitan, how long will it take? And how much data will it take? (I get my Internet through a hotspot and am afraid I will blow my monthly data-plan.)


3.) If I upgrade to El Capitan, can I still use CCC? Or will I get into licensing issues?


4.) If I ever need a clean install of everything, how would I do that? Truth be told, I am not sure how to even rebuild things with Mountain Lion? Did I get a CD with my laptop when I bought it?


5.) Anything else I need to be worried about? I am used to having a legal copy of the OS on CD and being able to rebuild things as often as you like with no issues. I have no clue how all of this works in the modern world!

1) No, not at all. Zero product key or authentication required.

2) You have to download a 4.5 GB file. It should max take 30 minutes to install on your Mac. No more downloading after this.

3) Licenses will be transferred over. You don't need to re-authenticate. Keep in mind you need CCC 4.x or newer in order to work with El Cap.

4) Since Lion (mid 2011), all reinstallation is exclusively done through the recovery partition. Basically, when you got your computer, a separate partition on your hard drive (which is like probably 8 GB max) was made. If you boot into the recovery partition by holding Option on startup, you will access it. From there, you can erase the main drive, deal with other disk utility things, reinstall the OS, etc. When you will upgrade to El Capitan, this partition will be updated to reflect the new OS, that is, when you reinstall the OS, you will reinstall El Capitan. It's also important to note that if you boot into Internet Recovery by holding Command+Option+R at startup, you will have your system download the recovery partition (temporarily), which allows you to reinstall the original OS the computer came with, in case your drive gets corrupted or something. If you have a Time Machine backup, you can use either to restore back to an earlier version of OS X.

5) As I said, it's even simpler now because your CD is both on your drive and accessible on the cloud There's really nothing to worry about now.

 

[Borin]

2) You have to download a 4.5 GB file.

El Capitan from the MAS is 6.21 GB, not 4.5 GB.

 

[garirry]

El Capitan from the MAS is 6.21 GB, not 4.5 GB.

Oh whoops, my mistake I guess.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:
What follows is my advice and opinion only.

Whenever a new version of the OS is released, I "experiment" with it for a while, using an external drive, while my "current OS" remains running UNTOUCHED on my internal drive.

This way, I can "dual-boot" to the new copy of the OS, and see how it behaves with the apps I use, etc.

I suggest you do it this way.
Of course, you need an external drive of some sort.
ANY old drive will do. Even if it runs slower at the moment (than an internal, which might be an SSD), you can get an idea of how things are going to go...

 

[Ambrosia7177]

OP:
What follows is my advice and opinion only.

Whenever a new version of the OS is released, I "experiment" with it for a while, using an external drive, while my "current OS" remains running UNTOUCHED on my internal drive.

This way, I can "dual-boot" to the new copy of the OS, and see how it behaves with the apps I use, etc.

I suggest you do it this way.
Of course, you need an external drive of some sort.
ANY old drive will do. Even if it runs slower at the moment (than an internal, which might be an SSD), you can get an idea of how things are going to go...

I use CCC and will clone my HDD before trying things out. That should accomplish the same thing.