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natcin

macrumors newbie
Oct 29, 2016
9
0
did you guys do a direct App Store update over your existing OS or clean install?

i'll be upgrading from Lion. worried about some compatibility issues for apps as well as how my data will be when making a single 5-year leap all the way to Sierra.
 

natcin

macrumors newbie
Oct 29, 2016
9
0
which OS did you upgrade from, if i may ask? one of the more recent ones or were you stuck in 2010-2011 prior to this just like me haha
 

itsayellow

macrumors newbie
Jul 18, 2017
1
1
Just to add a datapoint: I have a Late-2010 Macbook Air with 2.13 GHz Core 2 Duo and 8GB RAM. I had a horrible time of it when I did a clean install of Sierra. Mostly doing any kind of web browsing would slow the whole computer to a crawl and crank the fan full-blast.

I thought it was just that my computer was "too old to browse the web." So I downgraded it to 10.11 El Capitan as a test, and to my surprise it's totally happy now! The fan never kicks in and my experience is much much better.

So I would vote no on a Late-2010 Macbook Air with Sierra.
 
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dogslobber

macrumors 601
Oct 19, 2014
4,670
7,809
Apple Campus, Cupertino CA
Well, since I have 4GB of RAM on a MBAir from 2011 with:
- 7 Chrome tabs;
- Spotify open;
- iTunes open;
- Endnote open;
- world, excel and PPT open;
- VLC open;
- whatsapp open;
- Dropbox open;
- Mail open;
- Preview open;
- Plex opened.

without turning off my Mac on the last 7 days. I have 177MB of Swap, and a green memory pressure graph. So let me call BS on your statement.

10.11.6.

Swapping less than 1GB on a SSD on regular usage is completely irrelevant for every user, too. No one notices that at all.

Not sure why you got upset by my posting my experience with Sierra. You are running El Cap service pack 6 which is a totally different build, but don't let that stop you ranting in future.

Anyway, FWIW, Sierra still starts swapping pretty quickly so is generally in need of an 8GB or better machine to allow it to be used optimally. On this same 4GB machine I can run SL while still having 2GB of RAM unused. Sierra is a memory hog but I still use it on bigger machines.
 
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frank4

macrumors regular
Oct 17, 2011
186
40
Sierra runs fine on my 2011 base Mac Mini with 8GB ram and original HD. I've always run the latest macOS and let it install by standard updates. I was afraid Sierra might bog down this aging little computer so I did not update until a month ago. Fears were unjustified as it seems a little faster than El Capitan and no glitches.
 

simonsi

Contributor
Jan 3, 2014
4,851
735
Auckland
memPress.jpeg
On Sierra, my Macbook Pro's RAM was almost full and began swapping just after starting Safari.

"Full" is irrelevant, what colour was the Memory Pressure Graph? Be guided by that, not whether you think it is full or not.
 

macmesser

macrumors 6502a
Aug 13, 2012
921
198
Long Island, NY USA
I'm running Sierra on Mac Pro '09 5,1 (flashed) and it seems to be fine. All key apps seem to work, some because I updated the OS rather than do a clean install. Only problem I've seen is that I get many duplicate notifications from Facebook, and I just noticed it a day or so ago. Don't know if it's the OS or some other problem.
 

dogslobber

macrumors 601
Oct 19, 2014
4,670
7,809
Apple Campus, Cupertino CA
"Full" is irrelevant, what colour was the Memory Pressure Graph? Be guided by that, not whether you think it is full or not.

That’s the naive view where people want to look at pretty colors. The real drill down is looking at the compressed memory and admiring those compressed memory leaks. Well done, Apple!
 

DianeK

macrumors regular
Jun 4, 2013
222
8
Yesterday, I updated my late 2013 iMac with a 7200 rpm 3 tb hard drive, 32 gigs of ram, still on Mountain Lion. It was an update over ML, not a clean install.
I had one black screen freeze, after install, during set up but other than that I have to say that everything is running fine. I don't notice any speed issues. I have opened and worked in my Microsoft Office apps and they are find. I have opened by CS6 stand alone apps and they open fine but I have not yet done any photo editing work. Lightroom opened briskly but again I haven't actually worked in it. I am only 12 hours post update so if issues develop over the next few days, I will post back here. Also if I notice serious speed issues as I work more on the computer (especially in CS6) I will let you know.

I was sorry to lose Attachment Tamer, I must say.

Can anyone tell me how to stop my arrow cursor from intermittently swelling up into a giant icon??
 

tromboneaholic

Suspended
Jun 9, 2004
3,706
3,024
Clearwater, FL
Sierra runs fine on my 2011 base Mac Mini with 8GB ram and original HD. I've always run the latest macOS and let it install by standard updates. I was afraid Sierra might bog down this aging little computer so I did not update until a month ago. Fears were unjustified as it seems a little faster than El Capitan and no glitches.
It doesn’t seem to utilize the second GPU on the 2011 MacBook Pro. The integrated GPU isn’t quite up to the task...
 

EugW

macrumors G5
Jun 18, 2017
14,708
12,646
If you have 8 GB and SSD, and you can run Sierra, then you may as well upgrade to High Sierra instead. I now have a 2008 MacBook and a 2009 MacBook Pro on High Sierra. They work well. They both have SSD which is key. The 2008 has 4 GB RAM which is limiting, but then again it is limiting on El Capitan as well, even for just light usage. The 2009 has 8 GB which is perfect for what I use it for, which again is relatively light usage.
 
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Mac Hammer Fan

macrumors 65816
Jul 13, 2004
1,326
498
Sierra runs fine on my Mac Pro 2009 5,1 6 core. According to GeekBench Metal and Open CL benchmarks improved between 10 and 20% in comparison with El Capitan.
The only drawback so far is that I can't open some complex old Word documents with Office 2011, that Toast doesn't work and Filemaker Pro 10 crashes occasionally. Not sure if upgrading the first two applications will solve the problem.
 
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