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ArchiMark

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Feb 2, 2003
269
1
Silicon Valley
Hi,

Mojave works well on my upgraded (8GB RAM/2T SSD) Mid-2012 MBP.

Are there any good reasons to upgrade OS to newer version?

Appreciate any and all input!

Happy New Year,

Mark
 

mdgm

macrumors 68000
Nov 2, 2010
1,665
406
Mojave is the last Mac OS to run 32-bit apps. If you still need to use those sticking with Mojave for as long as possible makes a lot of sense, especially whilst it is still getting security updates.

Your MBP doesn't officially support running Big Sur. Catalina is generally seen to be inferior to Mojave. You lose support for 32-bit apps and don't gain much.

Big Sur is pretty new and with its support for Apple Silicon and Intel will be an obvious choice for developers to use as the oldest Mac OS they support at some point in the future.

You can run Big Sur on your Mac but doing so is not supported. There's a long thread on running Big Sur on unsupported Macs if you are interested but personally I would wait to consider this on your machine at least until Mojave is no longer receiving security updates from Apple.
 
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ArchiMark

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Feb 2, 2003
269
1
Silicon Valley
THANKS for all your detailed input, mdgm!

Very helpful.....

Will check out the Big Sur thread you mention...but agree, makes sense to wait awhile to see how that goes and when Apple stops releasing Mojave security updates.

👍
 

mwidjaya

macrumors 6502
Feb 25, 2004
426
561
Australia
Mojave works well on my upgraded (8GB RAM/2T SSD) Mid-2012 MBP.

If this is your only Mac, keep it as is, on Mojave.

I have an older Mac on Mojave, to be able to run 32-bit apps, just in case.

My other Macs are on Big Sur already.

PS - your 2012 MBP would have no problems to be patched for Big Sur. Go there at your own pace.
 
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mdgm

macrumors 68000
Nov 2, 2010
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406
I would suggest saving the Mojave and Catalina installers on some network or external storage.

If you did go to unsupported Big Sur you'd want to keep a bootable USB for e.g. Mojave handy, and perhaps even a partition for Mojave.

Personally I'm not yet running Mojave as I have an old version of some software that won't run on anything newer than High Sierra. I'll likely move on to Mojave sometime next year.
 
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ArchiMark

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Feb 2, 2003
269
1
Silicon Valley
Thank you, mwidjaya and mdgm for your great suggestions.

I'm in no rush to update to Big Sur.....

Not clear what the actual real world benefits would be other than it's the latest OS version and will be supported by Apple for some time to come. Not minimizing that aspect....

Just want to understand what features it would offer me that would make it compelling enough to bother with the effort needed.
 

mdgm

macrumors 68000
Nov 2, 2010
1,665
406
Nothing necessary now. It’ll mainly start to matter when developers don’t support anything older. It’d be less work preparing a Universal app to run on just Big Sur or later than to handle working on older Intel Mac OS as well.
 

mikzn

macrumors 68040
Sep 2, 2013
3,005
2,293
North Vancouver
Hi,

Mojave works well on my upgraded (8GB RAM/2T SSD) Mid-2012 MBP.

Are there any good reasons to upgrade OS to newer version?

Appreciate any and all input!

Happy New Year,

Mark
I have the same MacBook 2012 / i7 - what a workhorse - still got the original battery and running Mojave like a champ - Best Mac product i have ever purchased 👍

probably worth looking at upgrading the RAM to 16 gig to max out the memory especially since you have 2T SSD

I also have another MacBook Pro 2015 it was running Catalina and now Big Sur I honestly don’t see any advantage to switch the 2012 to either macOS especially since it’s not supported on a 2012

I’ll be leaving my 2012 on Mojave til’ the very bitter end 😃
 

ArchiMark

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Feb 2, 2003
269
1
Silicon Valley
Thanks, mdgm.....understand your points....

Seems like it's been a long time since any OSX upgrade really added some feature(s) that make you think 'Wow!' I am really glad Apple provided that feature and will really make a difference in the way I use computer.
 

ArchiMark

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Feb 2, 2003
269
1
Silicon Valley
I have the same MacBook 2012 / i7 - what a workhorse - still got the original battery and running Mojave like a champ - Best Mac product i have ever purchased 👍

probably worth looking at upgrading the RAM to 16 gig to max out the memory especially since you have 2T SSD

I also have another MacBook Pro 2015 it was running Catalina and now Big Sur I honestly don’t see any advantage to switch the 2012 to either macOS especially since it’s not supported on a 2012

I’ll be leaving my 2012 on Mojave til’ the very bitter end 😃

Thanks for your helpful input, mikzn!

Yes, these are excellent, well made machines and like that it has the DVD drive....comes in handy now and then...and with all the music CD's I still have....still have not imported all of them into iTunes....but probably could now with the larger SSD I put in earlier this year.

Hmmm...might check out upgrading RAM as you suggest....

:)
 
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mikzn

macrumors 68040
Sep 2, 2013
3,005
2,293
North Vancouver
Yes - still use my 2012 MBP superdrive for music CD / Library updates 😃 - back in the day used to only copy a few favorite tracks from my CD's - now I have been going back and slowly adding all the other "missing" tracks - LOL
 
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