Jumping from 10.5 to 10.11 and new SSD

[rosh325]

Hi All,
My friend has an early 2008 17" MBP (intel C2D; 4gb ram) with an older hard drive and leopard installed. I am replacing her drive with an SSD and plan to bring the machine up to El Capitan since she meets all the specs. I understand that I first need to install snow leopard to do a traditional upgrade but here's my question: If she's not concerned about migrating over data, is it better to just format the SSD externally and install 10.11 on the drive via a bootable USB stick? My machine is already on 10.11 so I can do all this from my machine before popping it into her computer with my USB to Sata adapter.

I guess what I'm wondering is:
1) Is there any benefit to upgrading her old machine to snow leopard first?
2) Will her machine miss out on any important EFI/firmware updates that have come along since Leopard if I do things this way vs. a traditional upgrade route of 10.5-->10.6-->10.11?

Edited to remove another question
Thank you all!

 

[leman]

1) Not that I can think of
2) I am sure that the 10.11 installer includes all the relevant upgrades for compatible hardware
3) I suggest that you decide that one for yourself I have no doubt that we will see a bunch of contradictory witnesses here in a second.

 

[rosh325]

1) Not that I can think of
2) I am sure that the 10.11 installer includes all the relevant upgrades for compatible hardware
3) I suggest that you decide that one for yourself I have no doubt that we will see a bunch of contradictory witnesses here in a second.

Thank you for the quick reply and good point about #3. I ended up removing that question rather than have the discussion go off track.

 

[rosh325]

1) Not that I can think of
2) I am sure that the 10.11 installer includes all the relevant upgrades for compatible hardware
3) I suggest that you decide that one for yourself I have no doubt that we will see a bunch of contradictory witnesses here in a second.

Another question: Do I need to do the install with the SDD in her machine, or can I just mount it on mine externally and do an install that way? I ask because my machine has USB 3 so I would assume things would be faster?

 

[Weaselboy]

Another question: Do I need to do the install with the SDD in her machine, or can I just mount it on mine externally and do an install that way? I ask because my machine has USB 3 so I would assume things would be faster?

You can do either, but I'm thinking like you that it would be faster over USB3 on your machine.

 

[rosh325]

You can do either, but I'm thinking like you that it would be faster over USB3 on your machine.

Okay thank you. I guess my concern was that if I did it via my machine, it would download a version of OSX that was specific to my machine instead of hers? They're both MBPs but I didn't know how the installer handles something like that

 

[leman]

Another question: Do I need to do the install with the SDD in her machine, or can I just mount it on mine externally and do an install that way? I ask because my machine has USB 3 so I would assume things would be faster?

I would install the new system on the computer it is supposed to run at, and not to en external drive that is then migrated to that system. There might be firmware updates that need to be selectively applied during the install process and if you just transfer the SSD, you might ne dup with a mismatched system. I know that people have had issues in the past with cloning the system drive (e.g. using super duper) and using them in a new system.

 

[Weaselboy]

Okay thank you. I guess my concern was that if I did it via my machine, it would download a version of OSX that was specific to my machine instead of hers? They're both MBPs but I didn't know how the installer handles something like that

That's not how it works. The downloaded installer is the same for all systems and it will recognize whatever hardware is present then install the correct drivers at that time.

 

[nebo1ss]

While you say she is not concerned about migrating over data you can never be 100 percent sure that she may not later discover some important data that she needs. Personally i would use Carbon Copy to create a bootable image of her drive with the existing operating system. I would then install that drive in her machine and use the apple store to upgrade to El Capitan. This is exactly what i did when i upgraded my Mac book pro to an SSD.

 

[garirry]

I guess what I'm wondering is:
1) Is there any benefit to upgrading her old machine to snow leopard first?
2) Will her machine miss out on any important EFI/firmware updates that have come along since Leopard if I do things this way vs. a traditional upgrade route of 10.5-->10.6-->10.11?

1) No, it doesn't matter.
2) No, it doesn't matter either.

Another question: Do I need to do the install with the SDD in her machine, or can I just mount it on mine externally and do an install that way? I ask because my machine has USB 3 so I would assume things would be faster?

Assuming you have a USB 3.0 enclosure, it would be working at near-regular speed over USB 3.0. Here's what I recommend, get a computer capable of running El Cap and running 10.6 or later, download the installer off the App Store and use this link to make a USB bootable drive: https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT201372 That will avoid having you to buy a copy of 10.6 just to make the update. Not to mention an 8GB drive will be cheaper.

Okay thank you. I guess my concern was that if I did it via my machine, it would download a version of OSX that was specific to my machine instead of hers? They're both MBPs but I didn't know how the installer handles something like that

This is not the case on Mac. All installers, except those bundled with your computer, are intercompatible with all computers it is natively compatible with, as it already contains all the drivers for every Mac available.

Before doing the process, obviously make a Time Machine backup, that way you could restore in case something goes wrong or you need to transfer files.

 

[rosh325]

Wonderful thank you all for the replies. I'll let you know how the process goes.

As for her files: My plan is to throw her 5200 rpm physical drive that I'm replacing into an external enclosure so that she can either choose files at a later time or even boot into the external drive if needed. The drive itself still works, it's just slow as hell.

 

[rosh325]

1) No, it doesn't matter.
2) No, it doesn't matter either.

Assuming you have a USB 3.0 enclosure, it would be working at near-regular speed over USB 3.0. Here's what I recommend, get a computer capable of running El Cap and running 10.6 or later, download the installer off the App Store and use this link to make a USB bootable drive: https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT201372 That will avoid having you to buy a copy of 10.6 just to make the update. Not to mention an 8GB drive will be cheaper.

This is not the case on Mac. All installers, except those bundled with your computer, are intercompatible with all computers it is natively compatible with, as it already contains all the drivers for every Mac available.

Before doing the process, obviously make a Time Machine backup, that way you could restore in case something goes wrong or you need to transfer files.

Sorry I forgot to mention: I already have the 10.6 disc from way back in the day, I'm just working on breathing new life into her dinosaur computer.

 

[garirry]

Sorry I forgot to mention: I already have the 10.6 disc from way back in the day, I'm just working on breathing new life into her dinosaur computer.

Oh, well, if you don't have a USB drive and a Mac that can download El Capitán, then you could use that disc to install the OS first, and then upgrade to 10.11.

 

[KoolAid-Drink]

Probably too late to suggest, but I'd fool the installer in thinking her 10.5 install is 10.6.8 by editing a plist file, then running the El Cap installer by restarting the computer and booting the installer off an external HD. If the installer detects it's a "10.6.8" install, it'll just do an upgrade and keep everything. Not sure if it'd work, and I'd recommend making a backup first, but I think the installer still reads from the SystemVersion.plist file. link to more information

At least, that's how various people fooled the Mac OS X Installer in the past, especially when going from 10.5 to 10.8, and 10.2 to 10.5 (IIRC).