2011 IMAC Which OS is best

[mdgm]

Here's a screenshot from Device Manager in Windows on the 2011 iMac (still booted off the ST3500418AS HDD).

Even if you can't boot Windows off it, it would still make for very fast external storage.

The enclosure I'm using doesn't go close to saturating TB3. It's possible some of the faster TB3 enclosures might give slightly better speeds. Still I'm getting pretty close to saturating the 800MB/s that TB1 can do for writes.

 

[mdgm]

Here's a speed test from a 2011 iMac. As you can see the write speed with a TB3 NVMe SSD exceeds what would be possible with a single SATA III SSD.

 

[mikehalloran]

I have connected OWC TB3 Envoy Express NVMe drives via OWC TB3 14-port docks to both the 2011 iMac and the 2011 Mac Mini. It works. I have booted High Sierra off the TB3 drive for both Mac models.

The dock has its own power supply so it can supply power to the drive. It’s not cheap but it does work. You are also limited to using High Sierra for compatibility with the drive.

It does mean that the bus powered drive that is meant to be portable isn't nearly so portable with these older Macs as you need to have a dock connected to power. I presume they don't promote this setup as they don't see a big market for it.

You get a 2011 iMac
Connect a TB(1/2) cable to the iMac
Connect the other end to an Apple TB3 to TB2 adapter (this is the only bi-directional adapter)
Connect the TB3 end of the Apple TB3 to TB2 adapter to a TB3 dock with its own external power supply such as the OWC TB3 14-port Dock (check system requirements to make sure it works with 10.13 before purchasing). The dock is needed to supply power to the drive.
Connect a TB3 drive (check that it works with 10.13 before purchasing).

I'm using the OWC Envoy Express TB3 enclosure with an Aura P12 NVMe drive inside.

This should work with all Macs with a TB1/2 port, I think, though I've only tested on the 2011 Mac Mini Server and 2011 iMac.

I updated to the latest High Sierra 10.13.6 with all security updates and cloned the hdd onto the external SSD using Super Duper. The Macs feel a lot quicker booted off an SSD.

The TB3 dock does have USB3 ports. Unfortunately it specifically states in the manual that the USB3 ports are only bootable on 2017 and newer Macs so I haven't tried booting off USB3. I haven't connected any USB3 drives yet to test file transfer speeds.

Currently I only have the Mac Mini booted off a TB3 SSD (trying to figure out if I can boot Windows off a TB3 SSD with the iMac - I almost exclusively boot Windows on the iMac, the SSD is still connected and is seen in Windows - though I think booting Windows off NVMe requires UEFI not sure if trying that would be safe on the 2011 iMac). I haven't done speed tests with the iMac yet but I presume the results would probably be similar with numbers a little better than an internal SATA III SSD but not by a huge amount.
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Flag on the play. You haven’t tested TB3 on a 2011. That’s too bad—I was hoping that you’d done what Apple and OWC say is impossible.

The OWC Envoy Express is not a TB3 enclosure. It is a USB 3.1 enclosure — big difference. You needed to test one of these:
https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/TB3ENVP20/

Envoy Pro EX Portable Solid-State Drive with​

Thunderbolt 3​

and if OWC and Apple are right, it won’t work.

USB-C is only a port. It is not a protocol. In your case, you have tested USB 3.1 over USB-C, not TB3, and made it work on a 2011 iMac.

That’s ok, really. I hadn’t considered that possibility. Cool that it works. Still, I can’t imagine that many (anyone?) others will go through the expense of an NVMe blade, the enclosure and a powered USB-C dock to get a little better performance than installing a SATA III drive inside a 2011.

 

[mdgm]

Did you not see my last post? It has a screenshot from the iMac and it is definitely the TB3 drive.

There
Is a very new product the TB3 Envoy Express. See https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/envoy-express/thunderbolt-3

It works. I can get more screenshots if you want but not till tomorrow as when I try to reboot remotely into UEFI Windows the Mac tries to boot legacy mode which won’t work. Making final preparations to clone the BootCamp partition onto the external SSD.

 

[mikehalloran]

Did you not see my last post? It has a screenshot from the iMac and it is definitely the TB3 drive.

There
Is a very new product the TB3 Envoy Express. See https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/envoy-express/thunderbolt-3

It works. I can get more screenshots if you want but not till tomorrow as when I try to reboot remotely into UEFI Windows the Mac tries to boot legacy mode which won’t work. Making final preparations to clone the BootCamp partition onto the external SSD.

Please show a picture of the actual unit you are using.

 

[mikehalloran]

Please show a picture of the actual unit you are using.

I have connected OWC TB3 Envoy Express NVMe drives via OWC TB3 14-port docks to both the 2011 iMac and the 2011 Mac Mini. It works. I have booted High Sierra off the TB3 drive for both Mac models.

That is not a TB3 enclosure.

 

[mdgm]

Here's the box the drive came in. It's faster than a USB-C drive but because my Mac only has TB1 ports it can only achieve about half of what the drive can connected to an iMac Pro which is why the speeds are slower than what you'd get from USB-C on a new Mac.

Apologies for the mess. You can see the TB3 drive connected to the dock using the TB3 cable and the TB3 to TB2 adapter connected to the dock and a TB2 cable to go back to the Mac and the power cable connected to the dock.

And here is a picture of the dock

 

[mikehalloran]

Thanks for the clarification. My 2011 is now in a box in the garage so I’ll never be trying it here.

I still have some clients on 2009–2011 27” iMacs on High Sierra which hit EOL last month. All are having issues syncing iTunes and Photos with iOS 14. I’ll be looking at iCloud settings — pretty sure I can crack this nut even though Apple is telling people that they are incompatible. We’ll see… I had upgraded all to SSDs years ago so that isn’t an issue.

 

[mdgm]

I'm now booting a mid-2011 iMac off a TB3 NVMe drive into Windows 10. I may do this with more of these iMacs.

 

[OriginalMacBabe]

I still have some clients on 2009–2011 27” iMacs on High Sierra which hit EOL last month. All are having issues syncing iTunes and Photos with iOS 14. I’ll be looking at iCloud settings — pretty sure I can crack this nut even though Apple is telling people that they are incompatible. We’ll see… I had upgraded all to SSDs years ago so that isn’t an issue.

I am on a mid-2011 27" iMac and just tried to backup my phone and found this problem. I'm still running 10.11. Are you saying that even if I concede to go to High Sierra I still won't be able to do it? I have 32G RAM and am about to add a 1TB SSD.

Are they seriously expecting me to replace a perfectly functional computer just to back up my phone? Or am they thinking I'm going to buy iCloud space for it? I don't want my phone in iCloud.

 

[EugW]

I am on a mid-2011 27" iMac and just tried to backup my phone and found this problem. I'm still running 10.11. Are you saying that even if I concede to go to High Sierra I still won't be able to do it? I have 32G RAM and am about to add a 1TB SSD.

Are they seriously expecting me to replace a perfectly functional computer just to back up my phone? Or am they thinking I'm going to buy iCloud space for it? I don't want my phone in iCloud.

AFAIK, iOS 14 iPhones are still supported even on 10.11. If you are having problems, I would suggest you download iTunes 12.8.2 and reinstall it.

Not only will it install it, it will install additional updates to support the latest version of iOS.

EDIT:

Confirmed. My main machine is on Big Sur, but I just tried this on my old octo-core Mac Pro 2,1 which is from 2007. Officially this machine is only supposed to support up to 10.7.5 Lion, but if you get the right video card, it can support up to 10.11 El Capitan without major hacks.

For added drama, I didn't even plug in the phone directly into my Mac Pro. I plugged it into my 30" Cinema Display, which is plugged into the Mac Pro.

My iTunes version was already on 12.8.2.3 but required an update for my iPhone 12 Pro Max on iOS 14.4.1.

After the update, iTunes recognized my 2020 iPhone just fine.

Furthermore, I could see my iPhone's photos just fine in Image Capture. The Photos application sees them fine too, although I wouldn't really recommend that version of Photos (1.5) anymore as it is so old.

 

[mikehalloran]

Just yesterday, I talked my friend through syncing my old 2010 iMac running High Sierra with her new iPhone 12 Mini running iOS 14.4. Once we had all the settings right and both properly signed into her iCloud account, everything just worked as it should. Easy peasy.

 

[OriginalMacBabe]

AFAIK, iOS 14 iPhones are still supported even on 10.11. If you are having problems, I would suggest you download iTunes 12.8.2 and reinstall it.
...
My iTunes version was already on 12.8.2.3 but required an update for my iPhone 12 Pro Max on iOS 14.4.1.

View attachment 1745926

After the update, iTunes recognized my 2020 iPhone just fine.
...
Furthermore, I could see my iPhone's photos just fine in Image Capture.

Thank you. I thought I was also on the most updated iTunes, but did just what you said: I downloaded and reinstalled. I got the same popup message when I opened, so I bit the bullet and allowed the install it wanted.

Everything works just fine again. Phew.

Now I just have to fix the fact that Siri decided in the middle of an outing this week to disconnect from the internet using my data, and will only connect using WiFi, which I find really strange, but immensely annoying, because it means my CarPlay isn't functioning properly now. This, of course, is why I was taking a backup of the phone.

Each thing we need to fix opens another can of problems. I've already reset the Network Settings without success. I'll see if the new iOS upgrade snaps it back. Otherwise it's a whole big deal and ... I haven't got a full backup of all my photos.

So, it is good to know that I can, if I must, update to High Sierra for future phones. I did make sure to "purchase" it when it was the "good as it gets" system, and I have the install dmg on a disk.

I'm going to look into Image Capture. I need to upgrade to my SSD and an external drive just for photos, because I don't have enough room anymore to store them all. Somewhere in the multiple changes between iPhoto and Photos, I think I lost a large chunk of my library, which is sad. I'm missing a number of years worth of photos, but ... we've all been through that. The older I get, the less I'm concerned. I've learned to pull the really important stuff to multiple disks by now.

Thanks for the help. MacRumors to the rescue again.

 

[EugW]

So, it is good to know that I can, if I must, update to High Sierra for future phones. I did make sure to "purchase" it when it was the "good as it gets" system, and I have the install dmg on a disk.

I'm going to look into Image Capture. I need to upgrade to my SSD and an external drive just for photos, because I don't have enough room anymore to store them all. Somewhere in the multiple changes between iPhoto and Photos, I think I lost a large chunk of my library, which is sad. I'm missing a number of years worth of photos, but ... we've all been through that. The older I get, the less I'm concerned. I've learned to pull the really important stuff to multiple disks by now.

Thanks for the help. MacRumors to the rescue again.

If you haven't already done so, I would suggest setting up multiple backup methods so that you can always go back to your old libraries as needed. I still have the last version of my iPhoto Library. I also have old Macs so that I can load up iPhoto if I wish, but I've already moved over the photos I wanted.

If you don't have enough space on your machine, you can purchase an external SSD like the Samsung T5. That what I did. (Well, a T7 in my case.)

(Note: The above is Big Sur, not High Sierra, just in case you're wondering.)

If you want to continue using Photos, then I might also suggest moving to Mac OS X 10.12 High Sierra sooner rather than later, as High Sierra has Photos 3.0. Just be aware though that once you upgrade your library to Photos 3.0, you won't be able to open it again in Photos 1.5 from Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan. High Sierra also supports the new APFS file system and HEIF images from newer iPhones. High Sierra's iCloud support also works with these new formats. Previous versions of OS X do not work with these new formats.

Image Capture is just for downloading the photos off your phone. It doesn't provide any management or editing features. I use Photos to download images directly from my iPhone. I generally don't use Image Capture. Yes, they're stuck in the Photos library that way, but if you wish, you can periodically export all the original masters from Photos. I do this occasionally, but my Photos library is already backed up locally to a Time Machine, and to my 2 TB iCloud account.

 

[mikehalloran]

Image Capture is just for downloading the photos off your phone.

Just??? No. In fact, can't say I've ever used it for that though I'm aware of the functionality.

I use Image Capture for scanning to my Mac without doing so from within an application. I was one of many who helped to get scanning working properly (finally!!!) in OS 10.8.3 when we also added wireless. Certain functionality had not been available between OS 10.5 when TWAIN was on life support through 10.6 when it was dropped through 10.8.2 — certain OS builds lost the ability to scan at all such as 10.8.1 (ok, it could scan but not save the file).

 

[EugW]

Just??? No. In fact, can't say I've ever used it for that though I'm aware of the functionality.

I use Image Capture for scanning to my Mac without doing so from within an application. I was one of many who helped to get scanning working properly (finally!!!) in OS 10.8.3 when we also added wireless. Certain functionality had not been available between OS 10.5 when TWAIN was on life support through 10.6 when it was dropped through 10.8.2 — certain OS builds lost the ability to scan at all such as 10.8.1 (ok, it could scan but not save the file).

Yes you are right. However, I thought you were referring specifically to moving pix to your machine with Image Capture.

BTW, I don't use Image Capture for scanning anymore mainly because my scanner does direct to USB. And when I didn't use that I sometimes have used their own scanning software which typically offers more features than Image Capture.

 

[mikehalloran]

I scan through ethernet or wireless—always straight scan. All processing happens post scan and that can be any or many processes.

 

[countermoon]

I never upgraded to High Sierra because of all the negative comments it received. In fact, upgrading to Sierra broke the spell checker in Pages. That's where I remain. Considering Nisus. Obviously I need a spell checker.

 

[mdgm]

I never upgraded to High Sierra because of all the negative comments it received. In fact, upgrading to Sierra broke the spell checker in Pages. That's where I remain. Considering Nisus. Obviously I need a spell checker.

You can clone your hdd using SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner, so if you do that whilst on Sierra, you can give High Sierra a try you can easily go back.

If you do ever put a 3rd party graphics card in you would want to go to High Sierra first, I think. There's a long thread on unsupported graphics card upgrades.

I think Sierra is the last OS where Office 2011 works though of course getting a newer version of Office that works on High Sierra is an easy solution to that.

 

[mikehalloran]

You can clone your hdd using SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner, so if you do that whilst on Sierra, you can give High Sierra a try you can easily go back.

If you do ever put a 3rd party graphics card in you would want to go to High Sierra first, I think. There's a long thread on unsupported graphics card upgrades.

I think Sierra is the last OS where Office 2011 works though of course getting a newer version of Office that works on High Sierra is an easy solution to that.

Uh yea...

3rd party graphics card in a 2011 iMac to run High Sierra? No reason for that.

Office 2011 runs over Mojave but has a memory leak in El Capitán and later. Office 2019 is the current stand-alone version @ $149. Much better than 2011 which had major issues that were never resolved. You don’t have the Cloud features of 365 but, if you don’t need those, 2019 is great.

I never upgraded to High Sierra because of all the negative comments it received. In fact, upgrading to Sierra broke the spell checker in Pages. That's where I remain. Considering Nisus. Obviously I need a spell checker.

That was 4 1/2 years ago. Pages has had many updates since then. You really think they didn’t fix spell check? Right...
Spell check in Pages

Unfortunately, Pages was dumbed down when it became free. Of course it has a spell checker but if you need some of the markup options that the iWork ‘09 version of Pages had, those are gone and never coming back. Time to find Office 2019.

If you want to keep a 2011 iMac around for a long time, replace the HD with an SSD, change the battery and update to High Sierra.

 

[mdgm]

3rd party graphics card in a 2011 iMac to run High Sierra? No reason for that.

Not for High Sierra in itself, but for using 3rd party graphics and unsupported newer Mac OS it’s recommended to have a working High Sierra partition to fall back on in the event of a PRAM or SMC reset (can’t remember which). Newer Mac OS than High Sierra is almost unusable with the stock Graphics with extremely slow performance.

 

[mikehalloran]

Not for High Sierra in itself, but for using 3rd party graphics and unsupported newer Mac OS it’s recommended to have a working High Sierra partition to fall back on in the event of a PRAM or SMC reset (can’t remember which). Newer Mac OS than High Sierra is almost unusable with the stock Graphics with extremely slow performance.

Since newer MacOS are incompatible with a 2011 iMac, that's just silly.

It's also incorrect. You can "recommend" all you want but an OS partition on an APFS formatted drive disables the ability to recover via APFS Snapshots.

 

[mdgm]

There is a long thread on MacRumors about people putting in 3rd party graphics cards and running newer MacOS. Just because you and I both haven’t done that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work. It’s a valid option to consider, especially as more and more developers abandon High Sierra and older Mac OS.