Are going to do a fresh install?

[deany]

Hi

Time Machine works.

There is no tangible benefit to a clean install, it is almost entirely psychological (i.e. the feeling of having a clean slate and no redundant user data on your disk). The installer makes sure that old system components are updated and unnecessary components are removed. El Capitan will actually clean up your /System, /bin, /sbin and /usr folders by moving everything that is not part of the system image out of these locations. Upgrading should thus be a bit of a clean install. Old logs and caches are cleaned up automatically anyway and old preferences and application support files can be easily cleaned up as well (even though the effort is hardly worth it).

The only reason why I would recommend a clean install is if you installed software in one of these locations mentioned above, as El Capitan will break them without a timely update. A clean install could be a way of getting rid of broken applications so that you can start fresh. However, if anything was added to the locations above, El Capitan will get rid of them for you and place them in your home folder.

In sum, unless you have specific issues that a clean install can resolve or don’t like redundant files in your library and user library, a clean install is not worth the effort. You won’t see performance benefits either.



Have you actually any proof that this is the case? Seems to be a widely held belief.

Hi

I have virtually no data (files folders or apps) just e-mail settings and wallpaper settings etc could you advise how much approx gb a time machine backup would produce from an up to date yosemite software on a 128 gb ssd?

Can any portable (correctly formated) say 1 tb hard drive be used? Or is time capsule that much better? Its just you can get 1 tb for £39 now!
Samsung M3 1TB USB 3.0 Slimline Portable Hard Drive - Black

Thank you in advance

 

[Fzang]

There's only anecdotal evidence and people feeling "dirty" to support the perceived benefits of a clean install.

So no.

 

[KALLT]

I have virtually no data (files folders or apps) just e-mail settings and wallpaper settings etc could you advise how much approx gb a time machine backup would produce from an up to date yosemite software on a 128 gb ssd?

Can any portable (correctly formated) say 1 tb hard drive be used? Or is time capsule that much better? Its just you can get 1 tb for £39 now!
Samsung M3 1TB USB 3.0 Slimline Portable Hard Drive - Black

Thank you in advance

Time Machine creates pretty much a replica of your disk, so you need to look at how much space you are currently using of your 128 GB SSD. If you don’t have that many files and applications, it won’t be all that much.

Yes, you can use a portable hard drive as well, you don’t need a Time Capsule. The added benefit of a Time Capsule is that you can connect to it over Wi-Fi and that multiple computers can connect to it at the same time. A USB disk will have to be connected very often in order to get frequent backups, it can be a bit of a hassle.

Just create a smaller partition on your external hard drive so that Time Machine won’t expand indefinitely to eat up your whole disk. With just 128 GB and few files, you will probably don’t need a large partition anyway. 200 GB would give you an entire backup of your system as well as plenty of space for any changes you made in between.

 

[deany]

Time Machine creates pretty much a replica of your disk, so you need to look at how much space you are currently using of your 128 GB SSD. If you don’t have that many files and applications, it won’t be all that much.

Yes, you can use a portable hard drive as well, you don’t need a Time Capsule. The added benefit of a Time Capsule is that you can connect to it over Wi-Fi and that multiple computers can connect to it at the same time. A USB disk will have to be connected very often in order to get frequent backups, it can be a bit of a hassle.

Just create a smaller partition on your external hard drive so that Time Machine won’t expand indefinitely to eat up your whole disk. With just 128 GB and few files, you will probably don’t need a large partition anyway. 200 GB would give you an entire backup of your system as well as plenty of space for any changes you made in between.

Thank you, very helpful advice.

 

[jhfenton]

Maybe I am naïve, but I have been trusting the majority of what is on my MacBook to iCloud. Music, photos, all my documents. I always clean install and then just have to install some apps. A clean install is a fairly easy straightforward process for me. I hear of all the issues people have over the years and I don't see it, but I understand everyone's situation is different. I've just been surprisingly happy with Apple's cloud offerings as of late. Guess I am one of the lucky ones.

You must not use many applications. I probably have 100 installed, some of which are annoying to reinstall without losing data. Some require deactivating and uninstalling first to preserve the license. Some are just time-consuming to reinstall. All would require preference tweaking after reinstallation. And though the video files themselves are on an external RAID5 volume, my Plex library files would have to be manually copied back into place on the boot volume.

Too much make-work for an imaginary gain.

 

[satinsilverem2]

Ive been running all of the betas over a Yosemite install that was about three months old but I think that I'm going to do a clean reinstall when the public release comes out.

 

[dBeats]

I haven't done a clean install since Snow Leopard and yes that includes Dev builds and I've been perfectly fine. Only do a clean install if you have a serious problem that cannot get resolved. Most times, if a system pref file or something gives you a hard time, just delete it and reboot, the system will give you a "fresh" copy of it anyway.

 

[DNichter]

You must not use many applications. I probably have 100 installed, some of which are annoying to reinstall without losing data. Some require deactivating and uninstalling first to preserve the license. Some are just time-consuming to reinstall. All would require preference tweaking after reinstallation. And though the video files themselves are on an external RAID5 volume, my Plex library files would have to be manually copied back into place on the boot volume.

Too much make-work for an imaginary gain.

Yea, I guess I am probably the type of customer Apple has been targeting as of late. I do feel like things tend to run smoother on my machine after a clean install, but maybe it's in my head. For you, not worth the time.

 

[leman]

I will most likely reinstall, but only because I have enabled a lot of detailed logging in my system to report bugs to Apple and I don't remember/know how to turn all of that stuff off So its generating tons of information which I won't need outside of beta.

absolutely yes, I don't want my mac to have graphical issues due to some conflicts between old gpu drivers, OpenGL/OpenCL and the new Metal thing

I surely hope the you are joking.

 

[dingdong]

I recently purchased macbook pro and installed a bunch of apps but i'm likely to clean install.. Are there any benefits for clean install besides cleaning clunk out? Surely there's an app that can erase left overs that get left behind? Will it effect performance if just upgrade?

 

[Nekki_X]

Fresh install. After hundred of updates (starting on DB1 on yosemite) it is time to do a fresh install... some stuff are degraded already in my system and updates (even el cap GM1) is unable to fix the issues.

 

[Apple_Robert]

I recently purchased macbook pro and installed a bunch of apps but i'm likely to clean install.. Are there any benefits for clean install besides cleaning clunk out? Surely there's an app that can erase left overs that get left behind? Will it effect performance if just upgrade?

Unless your system is not functioning properly, there is no real reason to do a clean install, in my opinion. Upgrading saves time as well as personal files and settings. You should be able to subsequently delete any unwanted programs.

You should not see a degradation in system performance by upgrading.

 

[blaichch]

I always do a clean install.

 

[KALLT]

I recently purchased macbook pro and installed a bunch of apps but i'm likely to clean install.. Are there any benefits for clean install besides cleaning clunk out? Surely there's an app that can erase left overs that get left behind? Will it effect performance if just upgrade?

There are some apps that can point you in the right direction by checking which apps you have installed against your preference and supporting files that were left behind. However, I typically don’t endorse them because they promote irresponsible user behaviour and can occasionally clean too much. I remember that CleanMyMac does this.

Honestly though, these files don’t do anything, they just sit there. They’re like old Word documents in your documents folder that you haven’t opened in years. They will not be accessed and thus have no impact on your system’s performance. Preference files are at most a few KB in size, whereas application support files can be bigger in some cases. You can have a look at your user library instead (hold the option key and click on “Go” in the menu bar in Finder and then select “Library”). There you should look for folders of applications that you have no longer on your system. Also check the Application Support, Containers and Preferences folders within the library. Doing this will get rid of most of these files. Caches, logs, saved application states and all will be removed periodically by the system itself.

 

[nanolife]

A clean install for sure. I even performed one yesterday and installed the GM.
All my files are either on iCloud or Dropbox anyway and I only need a few apps installed. Doesn't bother me at all.