Author Topic: Mac Mini Mid 2010 upgrading from OSX 10.8.5 to latest advice sought  (Read 1014 times)

slope

  • Inclined to distraction
    • Current pedalable joys
The pretty remote Nantgwynant valley is about to get FTTP! Which will be quite a shock after years of max 1Mbps download speeds. This will means I will finally have the ability to download a more up to date OS.

Current 'puter is Mac Mini mid 2010, 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (with a relatively new replacement internal 500GB hardrive - half full approx).

I use Photoshop CS5 and would wish to continue to do so - partly cos it's paid for and mostly because I don't think I could learn something different these days?

So would it be a good idea to buy an external hardrive and clone my current set up on to it, so if I have problems or CS5 isn't compatible with the latest OS, I can just reboot from that to continue using Photoshop CS5?

Only other old application I use lightly is Microsoft Office for Mac 2008.

Or any suggestions gratefully received - in very simple terms please :)

Auntie Helen

  • 6 Wheels in Germany
Re: Mac Mini Mid 2010 upgrading from OSX 10.8.5 to latest advice sought
« Reply #1 on: 19 June, 2018, 11:14:05 am »
Be careful and research thoroughly.

I ended up updating my late 2009 iMac to High Sierra because various bits of software no longer worked and I needed them (banking software, for example). But the Mac ended up being really really slow, so in the end I bought a new one. My Adobe CS 5.5 works ok on the new one, but in your place I wouldn't fiddle with the OS unless you need something newer for specific software you have to run.
My blog on cycling in Germany and eating German cake – http://www.auntiehelen.co.uk


Jaded

  • The Codfather
  • Formerly known as Jaded
Re: Mac Mini Mid 2010 upgrading from OSX 10.8.5 to latest advice sought
« Reply #2 on: 19 June, 2018, 11:16:32 am »
Modern MacOS NEEDS an SSD to be usable. OK, that's a bit dramatic, but on a spinning disk, it will be almost terminally slow.

I have a 17" MBP from 2011 that I put an SSD in. A friend has a similar one with a spinning disk. Chalk and cheese.

Also, Core 2 Duo is not a particularly fast processor...
It is simpler than it looks.

ian

Re: Mac Mini Mid 2010 upgrading from OSX 10.8.5 to latest advice sought
« Reply #3 on: 19 June, 2018, 07:10:45 pm »
Check for compatibility. CS5 is old (c2011). That said Office 2011 still works (though it gives a compatibility warning every time MacOS updates, each one presumably putting a nail in its coffin, it's a funeral I won't cry at). Bear in mind that sticking with old versions of software and operating systems will eventually slow things down and open security holes.

You can roll back with MacOS update from a Time Machine backup, which is probably the easiest way. And you should be using Time Machine anyway...

slope

  • Inclined to distraction
    • Current pedalable joys
Re: Mac Mini Mid 2010 upgrading from OSX 10.8.5 to latest advice sought
« Reply #4 on: 19 June, 2018, 08:10:00 pm »
Many thanks Auntie Helen, Jaded and ian :)

Stuff to ponder further . . . = oh dear!

I shall have to apply myself to the inevitable 'moving forward' at some point  :-[ ?

Been more than pleased (for my lite needs and use) with the 2010 Mac Mini

I still have gathering dust and taking up room, an ancient blueberry coloured G3 iMac + an ugly plasticky G4 desktop lump + a 12" G4 iBook! All fairly useless now :(




ian

Re: Mac Mini Mid 2010 upgrading from OSX 10.8.5 to latest advice sought
« Reply #5 on: 19 June, 2018, 09:06:30 pm »
I have a old 2007 Mac Mini lingering in my office – I think that's beyond any reasonable use other than a plant stand. It's not like I need another NAS as the other Mac Mini is doing that. And there's a G4 Powermac tower in the summer house, which I liberated (ok, I just forgot to mention it when they were clearing the office) when I was made redundant from a previous job. And I charged the taxi I used to liberate it back to work too. Ha. And it turned out that they had to rehire me at consultant rates and, as they'd misplaced that Mac, get me a newer one. Which I, at least, didn't steal. Though I really should have.

I fired it up the other year to send a fax. Who knew I'd need a modem in 2016. I think it took an entire afternoon. Anyway, still looks cool and is an amazing piece of design, but it seriously weighs a tonne (have you seen the bloody heatsink) and the fan, oh my, it's like standing next to an idling 747. Computers were a lot noisier back then.

Anyway, I'm still impressed with the capability and speed of my old 2009 Mac Mini. That will only run MacOS El Capitan, later Mac Minis will run High Sierra. The forthcoming MacOS Mojave will only support 2012 Mac Minis and upwards. And my poor 2011 MacBook Air which is still going strong (other than the battery, which has developed charge-based incontinence).

Anyway, check compatibility before upgrade. There are perks to upgrading, the recent MacOS releases have been solid and have delivered significant performance improvements especially for SSD-based machines. Do buy an external disk and run Time Machine on it. Even SSDs fail, and it's the minimum backup you should have (ideally consider some cloud-based storage, even if it's only vital files to Dropbox).

I'll add my usual plug for Affinity Photo, because I really like it, and I think it's a more than able replacement for Photoshop in most circumstances at a very reasonable price point. There is, of course, a learning curve. Also, if you're wedded to PS, Adobe still sell Elements, which is basically a cut-down version of PS but with some familiar interface elements. But it sounds like CS5 will work for now.

Re: Mac Mini Mid 2010 upgrading from OSX 10.8.5 to latest advice sought
« Reply #6 on: 21 June, 2018, 08:08:43 pm »
In 2015 when it came to upgrading the OS on my 2012 iMac to something beyond 10.6.8, I realised that all my PowerPC native software would no longer work.
Rather than upgrade all the software that had been acquired by sometimes *ahem* unconventional means, it was cheaper to buy a new iMac which is what I did, and I run the two iMacs side by side.

My bigger issue at the moment is that the 2015 iMac takes an age longer to fire-up than the 2012 one does, and it has become progressively slower as with each OS upgrade I install, the OS is better suited to a machine with an SSD - which my 2015 iMac doesn't have.
No, no, no, no.
I'm not about to shell out on a third iMac when I have two which are working.

As an observation, the first two Macs which I owned lasted ~6 years before something went terminally wrong with them, necessitating their replacement.
With the last two, they've started to be a bit less than the shiny I expect from Apple in around half that time.