Questions about upgrading macOS

[Ambrosia7177]

Hello. So I have been getting into amateur video diue to the pandemic, and @Boyd01 mentioned in another thread of mine that Adobe has a 90-day free trial of Final Cut Pro, but that it likely requires a newer OS than macOS Sierra which is what I am running.

I have another 2015 Retina MBP that has been sitting idle for the last 2 years and has never been used.

Maybe I could turn that into my video laptop? (Which would be good, because I just filled up my SSD on my primary Retina and can't finish downloading picture off of my iPhone!)

I think I have a CCC clone of the base install of Sierra.

So if I used that clone to bring my 2nd Retina online, then I have some questions about upgrading...

1.) Which OS would be the easiest to upgrade to , and the most practical for me to have? (I hear that Catalina is "bricking" people computers which would be the end of the world during the pandemic, so I'd prefer not to go with Catalina.)

2.) Which OS would be best for things like the Final Cut Pro 90-day trial?

3.) If I ugraded this 2nd Retina to a newer OS, could I roll things back if need be? (I recall hearing in the past that some OS if you upgraded to it, then it completely changed the file layout or something and it was a PITA to change things so you could go back to the old OS?!)

4.) Am I limited in what I can upgrade to since I have a clone of macOS Sierra?

Thanks.

 

[Boyd01]

Final Cut Pro is from Apple, not Adobe!!!

It requires Mojave to install (MacOS 10.14) at a minimum but you could also use Catalina. It shouldn't be a problem to upgrade to either Mojave or Catalina. I am running Sierra on a 2012 Mini and 2013 MacBook Air, Mojave on a 2014 Mini and Catalina on a 2012 Mini. Haven't had any problems.

If you want Mojave, see this:

How to download and install macOS - Apple Support

Download and install current or previous versions of the Mac operating system on compatible Mac computers.

support.apple.com

Make sure you have one (or preferably several) good Carbon Copy Clones of your current operating system before upgrading. You should then be able to restore to exactly what you had before.

After upgrading, get the Final Cut Pro trial here

Final Cut Pro for Mac - Free Trial

Final Cut Pro revolutionizes post-production with 360° video, HDR, and advanced tools for color correction. Try it now with a free 90-day trial.

www.apple.com

 

[throAU]

A 2015 Pro is something I would off-sell and upgrade to a 2016+ if I was working with video specifically. Not because of issues running the latest OS, but more to do with the CPU in it.

Why? 2016+ models (anything with Skylake CPU or later in them) have hardware encode/decode support for modern codecs like h.264 and h.265 whereas the 2015 model does not (decode only for h.264, no h.265 if I recall).

This impacts quicksync (and is also why the 2015s can't do Apple sidecar with an iPad, because they don't support the codec in hardware that apple is using for it).

That will make working with video using those codecs MUCH faster, less heat, less noise, etc.

Unfortunately the 2015s CPU is *just* too old to have included full support for the modern video codecs, and it makes a massive difference to CPU usage and thus heat/noise/performance.

 

[Boyd01]

I suppose it depends on what you want to do. I am editing 1080p video happily on a 2012 quad-core Mini server with the lowly HD4000 graphics chip. Wouldn't a 2015 MBP would be at least comparable to that, if not better? I will eventually upgrade, but am not really interested in spending money to "fix something that ain't broke" at the current time.

The OP posted about his needs here, he is just starting and wants to learn video editing. Buying a new computer might be overkill for him...

Getting started with Video

Hello. I am a cub reporter of sorts and have been busy the last month out in the field interviewing people about the coronavirus. Now I have a maybe 100 videos that I took on my iPhone, and I don't know what to do with them as far as editing them so they are ready to publish online. I would...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[throAU]

Yeah was going to edit my post but the forum crashed.

If its just to play with video to evaluate final cut only - go right ahead, the machine will do it.

But if you're considering this machine vs. a different one for this job - then be aware that 2016 onwards CPUs will perform a lot better for this sort of work (much more so vs. any other sort of workload) because the 2015 falls just outside of support for modern codec encode/decode/transcode in hardware.

It's won't be a small incremental difference, it will be significant. Even offloading the 2015 Pro for say, a Mac mini with Skylake onward CPU will give BIG performance gains (so long as you get SSD like the MacBook Pro has!) and likely be do-able without having to outlay much at all.

But again, depends how much performance is important for this.
[automerge]1587600239[/automerge]

Wouldn't a 2015 MBP would be at least comparable to that, if not better?

Depends on the codec used, but if neither machine has hardware encode/decode support (and I suspect "no" is the case) then no, the Mini will probably blow the 2015 Pro into the weeds due to having better cooling and twice as many CPU cores (to brute force its way through the encoding with software). The MacBook Pro 13 from 2015 is only a dual core!

If both have hardware decode/encode support the quad core mini will still be faster by virtue of 2x more cores.

The only way a 2015 MacBook Pro 13" is going to outperform a mini of the same/similar age is if the Mini is crippled with a spinning hard drive.

A newer MacBook Pro with 2016 onwards CPU - likely will be a lot faster than an older (2015 CPU or earlier) mini. Again due to hardware support.


This is one of those scenarios where Geekbench probably won't tell the full story either, unless it measures video transcode throughput using hardware encode/decode if supported on the CPU.

 

[Ambrosia7177]

Final Cut Pro is from Apple, not Adobe!!!

A ha!

It requires Mojave to install (MacOS 10.14) at a minimum but you could also use Catalina. It shouldn't be a problem to upgrade to either Mojave or Catalina. I am running Sierra on a 2012 Mini and 2013 MacBook Air, Mojave on a 2014 Mini and Catalina on a 2012 Mini. Haven't had any problems.

What about some people's computers getting bricked by Catalina?

If you want Mojave, see this:

How to download and install macOS - Apple Support

Download and install current or previous versions of the Mac operating system on compatible Mac computers.

support.apple.com

Make sure you have one (or preferably several) good Carbon Copy Clones of your current operating system before upgrading. You should then be able to restore to exactly what you had before.

What was it then that I hear din the past where when people upgraded from one macOS version to another that they then were unable to go back to the oriinal version?

After upgrading, get the Final Cut Pro trial here

Final Cut Pro for Mac - Free Trial

Final Cut Pro revolutionizes post-production with 360° video, HDR, and advanced tools for color correction. Try it now with a free 90-day trial.

www.apple.com

I'm gonna start off with iMovie - per advice from people here - but if I need more power, then hopefully I can take advantage of the offer you mentioned.

(If I was working, dropping $300 would be nothing.)

 

[Boyd01]

You can read about Catalina issues for yourself, I wouldn't begin to attempt to summarize them.

macOS Catalina (10.15)

forums.macrumors.com

From what I have seen the issue of not being to downgrade is related to the newest Macs that have the T2 chip. I have my 2012 mini setup to boot into three different versions of MacOS: Mountain Lion, Sierra and Catalina. Everything works just fine.

 

[Fishrrman]

You don't want Catalina.
Use Mojave instead. This is the best advice you're gonna get in this thread. (no, I'm not modest)

You can get the installer here:

How to download and install macOS - Apple Support

Download and install current or previous versions of the Mac operating system on compatible Mac computers.

support.apple.com

Get the 2015 set up and use the link above to upgrade it to Mojave.

WARNING -- I recommend that you DO NOT INSTALL the 10.14.6 "supplemental" update (due to crashes waking from sleep that others have reported).

So.. TURN OFF "automatic updates" once you have Mojave installed.

Once all this is done, then see if the Final Cut Pro demo download will work.

If it doesn't, try iMovie instead.

 

[Ambrosia7177]

@Fishrrman,

Do you have a link where I can get the full version of Mojave so I will always have a local copy for the future? (Just having an installer that points to Apple is of no use.)

Thanks.

 

[DeltaMac]

Fishrrman's link does take you to the Mojave upgrade page, and that page offers you a link to download Mojave. It's the full install, not the "stub" downloader link that you might be wary of.
Or, here's a copy of that link - Get macOS Mojave
As normal, the installer app downloads to your Applications folder.
Quit the installer when it launches after the download. Save the app to another drive. Remove the >6GB app from your boot drive, if you need to keep that space free

 

[Ambrosia7177]

Fishrrman's link does take you to the Mojave upgrade page, and that page offers you a link to download Mojave. It's the full install, not the "stub" downloader link that you might be wary of.
Or, here's a copy of that link - Get macOS Mojave
As normal, the installer app downloads to your Applications folder.
Quit the installer when it launches after the download. Save the app to another drive. Remove the >6GB app from your boot drive, if you need to keep that space free

I'm getting backed up here on Mac projects, but thanks for the help!!

 

[Boyd01]

After you run the installer, you'll find a file named Install MacOS Mojave.app in your Applications folder. Just make sure you save a copy of that and you will be able to install on any compatible Mac.

 

[Dave Braine]

What was it then that I hear din the past where when people upgraded from one macOS version to another that they then were unable to go back to the oriinal version?

If you make a bootable copy(clone) of your hard drive onto an external drive, using Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper before you upgrade, then, if you don't like the upgrade, you can just copy your clone back to your Mac.

Download CCC - Bombich Software

bombich.com

SuperDuper!

 

[Ambrosia7177]

If you make a bootable copy(clone) of your hard drive onto an external drive, using Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper before you upgrade, then, if you don't like the upgrade, you can just copy your clone back to your Mac.

Download CCC - Bombich Software

bombich.com

SuperDuper!

Then maybe the problem that people ran into is they had installed a newer version of macOS and it changed the file structure and they could just reinstall their original OS back on that HDD?

But it sounds ike you are saying that if you have a clone of your original OS, then if you reinstall that original clone it apparently writes over everything and so no issues?

I think after macOS Sierra, Apple changed the way data is stored at a block level - sorry if I'm not saying this right - and it caused issues starting wth High Sierra or maybe Mojave?

 

[Boyd01]

The change to APFS came with High Sierra and has been refined further in Mojave and Catalina. AFAIK, it is possible to convert a disk back to HFS+ (the old file system) and re-install an older operating system, but I have never tried.

What I do is clone my old internal SSD to an external SSD. I can then boot directly from the external into the old operating system. I literally do this every day.

 

[Ambrosia7177]

The change to APFS came with High Sierra and has been refined further in Mojave and Catalina. AFAIK, it is possible to convert a disk back to HFS+ (the old file system) and re-install an older operating system, but I have never tried.

Yeah, that is what I was thinking about.

What I do is clone my old internal SSD to an external SSD. I can then boot directly from the external into the old operating system. I literally do this every day.

Yes, I understand this as I do regular backups/clones with CCC and both a HDD and SSD.

But does that HS+ to APFS change happen at a software level, or is it somehow changing the physial drive or firmware?

And if you had a clone of Sierra, could you just copy that clone back to your HDD/SSD and roll-back an upgrade to High Sierra or later, or is it not that easy?

I seem to recall that it wasn't that easy, and you had to manually mess with your hardware/boot drive, but I don't recall, so I wanted to check first.

 

[Boyd01]

APFS and HFS+ are just different ways to format a disk. You can use Disk Utility to do this, just like you could also format it for Windows. It will completely erase the drive but you can then copy your old clone back to it.

How to Revert a drive from APFS back to HFS+

We show you how to revert back to HFS+ from APFS (Apple File System).

blog.macsales.com

 

[Ambrosia7177]

APFS and HFS+ are just different ways to format a disk. You can use Disk Utility to do this, just like you could also format it for Windows. It will completely erase the drive but you can then copy your old clone back to it.

How to Revert a drive from APFS back to HFS+

We show you how to revert back to HFS+ from APFS (Apple File System).

blog.macsales.com

@Boyd01,

Sorry, didn't see your reply.

Thanks for the link.

Some questions about all of that...

1.) Why do you have to do that via command-line? (You made it sound like this can be done using Disk Utility?)

2.) Why would Apple implement APFS if it breaks Time Machine and FileVault2?

3.) If you have data on an APFS drive, then if you back it up to another drive while you change the disk formatting, then how is that data usable again on an HFS+ drive? (Isn't your DATA still formatted as APFS?)

4.) Why did Apple ditch HFS+ for APFS?

5.) If you need to share files between macOS and Windows and Linux, what should you do/use?

Thanks!

 

[Boyd01]

That article is actually two years old. I think you can reformat an APFS volume to HFS+ with disk utility now, but really don't know since I've never had a need. And I also think APFS is compatible with Time Machine - I use it to backup my APFS disks. Disk formatting is a low level thing that users normally wouldn't be concerned with. If you backup an APFS disk, then restore to an HFS+ disk, I don't think there is any problem as long as you use a current version of a program like Carbon Copy. Sharing data between operating systems can be done in many ways, that's more than I can cover. For my own use, I share files between my Windows machine and Macs either using a network disk or just a simple USB flash drive, formatted as FAT32.

I'll let somebody else explain why Apple developed APFS...