Owners of older Macs - anyone jump on to El Capitan? Also upgrade the HDD to SSD?

Freeway makes a good point. They are hard to work on, but luckily, you can use an external SSD instead. It will work well.

I think you convinced me too. I watched a few videos and got nervous about suction cups on glass, parts not lining up exactly, etc.

RAM upgrade is straightforward, but swapping out the drive is a little too nerve-wracking. Maybe external is the safer (saner) option.

For what it's worth, I have taken apart a Mini, but is not for everyone.

I can take it apart in 20 mins. Its everything being .00001mm off during reassembly that screws you. I've built / repaired computers and point of service machines for years. The memory upgrade on the mini is cake i will say.

I agree about the memory upgrade. I did that myself and it was very easy - took about ten minutes.

Whoops, even though I bought it in 2010, it turns out that I actually have a late 2009 model iMac which (if I'm following the OWC website correctly) is an even bigger challenge when it comes to adding an internal SSD. It's not clear if it's even possible. I need to do some more research to understand it, but hopefully I can still get things going for this model with an external SSD setup.

Hadn't done anything yet and was horrified to discover my computer idling with fans at full blast yesterday morning (I'm scared to think about how many hours it was running like that). Cloned everything, zeroed out the drive (I have two clone backups) and reinstalled Snow Leopard. Then I figured "why not" and jumped straight to El Capitan.

And it runs like a dream! I can't get over how it feels like an almost-new machine. I say "almost" because the only disappointment is a vertical band of tan discoloration on the left side of the screen. It's not terrible, but definitely noticeable on a white background. I'm assuming it's damage related to the extreme heat as the computer ran slower and slower over the last few months.

I still want to bump up the RAM and upgrade the main drive, but it looks like it's less of a rush now.

I used the videos on this site to install a new HD in my Powerbook Pro - very helpful. The link is for an iMac.

http://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/imac_24_0708e09_hd/

project37 said:
Then I figured "why not" and jumped straight to El Capitan.
And it runs like a dream!

Funny that you posted this. I'm running Lion (only four versions behind) on my Mac Mini and I just now received a pop-up inviting me to upgrade to El Capitan. Guess it's time to make the jump.

My only issue so far has been an incompatibility (since fixed) with Outlook 2011. Yes, my company still uses Outlook 2011 on Macs.

I upgraded my 2011 MacBook Air last night. Running through a few obvious tests this morning, everything seems to be working perfectly fine.

I upgraded my 2014 Macbook Pro over the weekend, and it's working perfectly. My wife upgraded her 2010 Macbook Pro this morning, so it's too soon to tell, but I'm optimistic.

May I insert an Apple newbie question here? I got my first MacBook Air last Xmas. I'm currently running OS X 10.9.5, never having upgraded to Yosemite. Now I see that there's an even newer OS out. My computer is working great for my needs. Should I upgrade anyway? And if so, do I first need to upgrade to Yosemite and then to El Capitan? Or do I just go directly from 10.9.5 to El Capitan? Thanks.

unicorn33 said:
May I insert an Apple newbie question here? I got my first MacBook Air last Xmas. I'm currently running OS X 10.9.5, never having upgraded to Yosemite. Now I see that there's an even newer OS out. My computer is working great for my needs. Should I upgrade anyway? And if so, do I first need to upgrade to Yosemite and then to El Capitan? Or do I just go directly from 10.9.5 to El Capitan? Thanks.

It really depends on your needs and what you do on your machine. Third party software isn't always immediately optimized for the newest OS, so it's worth doing some research before taking the plunge. For example, I do a podcast and rely heavily on Audacity for my MacBook Pro. The developers took quite a while to get it compatible with Yosemite, so I stayed on Mavericks until that was sorted out.

That said, you *can* partition off part of your hard drive and load up Yosemite or even El Capitan to mess around with it and see if you like it:

http://www.imore.com/how-partition-your-mac-test-os-x-el-capitan

If your machine is working well as is, then there really isn't any need to upgrade. I only did it because my older Snow Leopard iMac was in rough shape. If it ain't broke...

Agreed with Project37; there is no particular rush to upgrade. To answer the last part of your question, whenever you do decide to upgrade, you can go directly to El Capitan

Thanks!

To put a slightly finer point on it: When you click to upgrade to El Capitan, the installer will run a short diagnostic to check for any updates you may need prior to installation, and will a) tell you to install a particular update first, or b) install it automagically and then proceed with the El Capitan upgrade all by itself. The latter is FAR more likely than the former.

My wife upgraded her 2010 MacBook Pro to El Capitan. No problems

Tom_Reingold said:
My wife upgraded her 2010 MacBook Pro to El Capitan. No problems

I upgraded my wife's 2010 Pro today. No problems with the update. I'm hoping she'll see some improvements in speed; it was getting to be frustratingly slow.

BrickPig said:

I upgraded my wife's 2010 Pro today. No problems with the update. I'm hoping she'll see some improvements in speed; it was getting to be frustratingly slow.

How much improvement are you hoping for? I doubt it would go from frustrating to pleasant with just an OS upgrade.

Tom_Reingold said:

BrickPig said:

I upgraded my wife's 2010 Pro today. No problems with the update. I'm hoping she'll see some improvements in speed; it was getting to be frustratingly slow.

How much improvement are you hoping for? I doubt it would go from frustrating to pleasant with just an OS upgrade.

Kind of hard for me to speculate, as I never use that computer, but I have been reading anecdotal reports from people who are quite pleased with the increased performance of older computers. Truth be told, however, I don't expect things to improve enough to prevent me from having to do a wipe and re-install sometime in the near future.

I haven't seen many (or any?) cases of wiping and reinstalling improving performance on a Mac. Then again, I'm thinking it might help me. My Mac is old and has bugs that a wipe ought to clear out.

I've never tried the wipe/reinstall personally, but again, I've read accounts from people who claim it helped. If it were my own laptop I'd simply be shopping for a replacement, but my wife is loathe to spend the $$$. And I'm happy to do what I can to try to revive it for her, if for no other reason than to see how effective it is (or isn't)

I'm looking for a decent used Mac laptop if anyone (Brickpig?) ditches an old one for a shiny new model.

I upgraded my 2010 MacBook Pro to El Capitan two or three weeks ago and ever since it has crashed several times a day.

FC_ said:

I upgraded my 2010 MacBook Pro to El Capitan two or three weeks ago and ever since it has crashed several times a day.

Sorry to hear that. For what it's worth, I did a full format of the hard drive (backed up essential files first) so it was a clean install. The hardware should otherwise be able to handle it. Would definitely be worth your time to give that a shot.

FC_ said:

I upgraded my 2010 MacBook Pro to El Capitan two or three weeks ago and ever since it has crashed several times a day.

I'm pretty sure there's something more going on there than just the upgrade itself. As Tom R. and I both mentioned earlier in this thread, the upgrade worked fine on our 2010 MBPs, and I have heard the same from other friends as well.

Do you happen to be running Microsoft Office 2016? I have seen some reports that El Capitan and Office 2016 don't always play well together:

http://www.macworld.com/article/2993132/software-productivity/office-2016-for-mac-update-doesnt-include-fix-for-crashes-under-os-x-el-capitan.html

You know, it just occurred to me that I don't back up a Mac before upgrading. That's really foolish, but it indicates my confidence in Apple to do this right. They're not perfect every time, but it works better than any other system upgrade I've done, and I've done hundreds or thousands.

Fyi from the Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/02/technology/personaltech/should-you-update-to-apple-os-x-el-capitan.html?emc=edit_tu_20151201&nl=bits&nlid=64055885

I backed my mid-2011 iMac up and upgraded to El Capitan on Monday. So far I've had nothing to complain about. It's faster for sure. Thinking about upgrading the memory but haven't had to do it yet. Perhaps next year when I'm doing some musical stuff (which is what I said last year)...