final help before upgrade from 10.7 to Sierra

[depechemode66]

hi, literally about to upgrade from 10.7 to sierra on I'm iMac (mid 2011) .
Ok so I've backed up to Time machine and my Seagate Exteranl drive. If this dosent work for whatever reason and i can't see any of my files can i reverse the process and get back to where I am now via Time machine or another way. Heard so many things about upgrading that I feel i should ask one last time.
Thanks
paul

 

[Fishrrman]

Instead of Time Machine, I would advise you to create a FULLY BOOTABLE CLONED BACKUP by using either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper.
Either is free to download and use. (at least for the first 30 days)

Reason why this is better:
If you have problems with the upgrade, or simply don't like it, all you need to do to "get back, get back, get back to where you once belonged" is to do this:
1. Boot from cloned backup
2. Reinitialize internal drive
3. RE-clone the cloned backup BACK TO the internal drive.

And it will be EXACTLY as you left it.

Something else to consider:
I'm going to assume that the iMac you have has a platter-based internal drive (HDD).

I predict that you're going to find the overall "perceived performance" of Sierra much slower than 10.7 is currently running. That's because (since OS 10.9 Mavericks) recent versions of the Mac OS seem to have been engineered to run on either SSD's or "fusion drives". The OS (of course) will still run on older Macs with HDD's, but the experience will seem more like it's "walking" instead of "running".

Something that will make a BIG difference:
Get a thunderbolt-based external SSD, and set that up with Sierra (or El Capitan which I like better) to become your "external booter".
This will run far FAR FAR faster than the internal HDD, and make Sierra quite snappy instead of sluggish...

 

[danpass]

Can an iMac be retrofit with an SSD?