Hi.
This is a quick review of macOS 10.13.3 High Sierra (build 17D47) on a 13" MacBook Pro from 2010 (my old and loyal MacBook Pro, my main machine since I bought it almost eight years ago). My MacBook Pro has a MX100 256GB SSD and 8GB of memory RAM at 1067MHz.
My impressions with macOS 10.12.6 Sierra were very, very good. The performance of Sierra was among the best from all the macOS versions I've used, with releases like Mavericks. And High Sierra is near of this perfection.
To put it bluntly, Sierra had an espectacular performance in my machine, and High Sierra is almost there. So, for me, keeping into account all the improvements and security fixes it brings, definitely is worth the update to High Sierra.
For instance, in Sierra, switching between different desktops or full screen apps was buttery smooth. In High Sierra, it is not a pain, but it is not buttery smooth. But I have to say, this behaviour is not fault of my old system, because I've tried it on new 12" MacBooks and 2017 13" MacBook Pros, and it has the same stuttering when making this animation.
Invoking Control Center is equally smooth as in Sierra, and the system, overall, is speedy and responsive. If Sierra was a 9.5 out of 10, High Sierra is a 9 out of 10. And it's not that bad for me.
Battery life is almost the same (if not better, but I haven't checked this yet deeply). I had a problem with the battery, telling me to repair it, and with High Sierra all those issues dissapeared. I recovered the "time remaining with battery" menu, from Sierra 10.12.1, and after installing Keeping You Awake, the ad blocker Wipr, SMCFanControl for the fans, the compressor/uncompressor Keka (one of the best compressors on the Mac App Store), Spotify and other programs, my system is performing quite well.
New File System: APFS
So, what did I do in regards of the new File System? I had decided I was going to try APFS, and I'm glad I made that choice. From the install USB Drive, I booted and then, formatted my Crucial SSD MX100 with newest Apple File System (APFS). I'm going to try the encrypted option in the future, although my machine is pretty old, I'm curious; but for now, I just formatted my Crucial SSD with simple APFS (no encrypted, no other options). And then, after the quick process of formatting the drive -it was less than a second-, I began the installation of High Sierra from scratch, as I always do.
I left it one night without going to sleep, in order to make its indexations. I disabled Location Services, Siri, and some other things in order to cut possible CPU usage. And so far, so good. Temperatures are OK, performance is OK, and battery life is OK.
If I notices something else, I will update this review.
Feel free to share your impressions of macOS High Sierra on an old (2009-2010) device.
Next step: formatting my empty external Hard Drives (mechanical, not SSD) to APFS
This is a quick review of macOS 10.13.3 High Sierra (build 17D47) on a 13" MacBook Pro from 2010 (my old and loyal MacBook Pro, my main machine since I bought it almost eight years ago). My MacBook Pro has a MX100 256GB SSD and 8GB of memory RAM at 1067MHz.
My impressions with macOS 10.12.6 Sierra were very, very good. The performance of Sierra was among the best from all the macOS versions I've used, with releases like Mavericks. And High Sierra is near of this perfection.
To put it bluntly, Sierra had an espectacular performance in my machine, and High Sierra is almost there. So, for me, keeping into account all the improvements and security fixes it brings, definitely is worth the update to High Sierra.
For instance, in Sierra, switching between different desktops or full screen apps was buttery smooth. In High Sierra, it is not a pain, but it is not buttery smooth. But I have to say, this behaviour is not fault of my old system, because I've tried it on new 12" MacBooks and 2017 13" MacBook Pros, and it has the same stuttering when making this animation.
Invoking Control Center is equally smooth as in Sierra, and the system, overall, is speedy and responsive. If Sierra was a 9.5 out of 10, High Sierra is a 9 out of 10. And it's not that bad for me.
Battery life is almost the same (if not better, but I haven't checked this yet deeply). I had a problem with the battery, telling me to repair it, and with High Sierra all those issues dissapeared. I recovered the "time remaining with battery" menu, from Sierra 10.12.1, and after installing Keeping You Awake, the ad blocker Wipr, SMCFanControl for the fans, the compressor/uncompressor Keka (one of the best compressors on the Mac App Store), Spotify and other programs, my system is performing quite well.
New File System: APFS
So, what did I do in regards of the new File System? I had decided I was going to try APFS, and I'm glad I made that choice. From the install USB Drive, I booted and then, formatted my Crucial SSD MX100 with newest Apple File System (APFS). I'm going to try the encrypted option in the future, although my machine is pretty old, I'm curious; but for now, I just formatted my Crucial SSD with simple APFS (no encrypted, no other options). And then, after the quick process of formatting the drive -it was less than a second-, I began the installation of High Sierra from scratch, as I always do.
I left it one night without going to sleep, in order to make its indexations. I disabled Location Services, Siri, and some other things in order to cut possible CPU usage. And so far, so good. Temperatures are OK, performance is OK, and battery life is OK.
If I notices something else, I will update this review.
Feel free to share your impressions of macOS High Sierra on an old (2009-2010) device.
Next step: formatting my empty external Hard Drives (mechanical, not SSD) to APFS
