Should I upgrade from Sierra to Mojave and then to Catalina?

[DanMR]

I am running Sierra on my 1TB Fusion Drive late 2012 iMac. I would like to update the OS from Sierra to Catalina. (I am aware that Catalina has issues but I would like to try it regardless)

Just wondering if it would be wise to make a clone of my Sierra drive, then update to Mojave, then make a clone of Mojave and then update to Catalina.

 

[mikzn]

I am running Sierra on my 1TB Fusion Drive late 2012 iMac. I would like to update the OS from Sierra to Catalina. (I am aware that Catalina has issues but I would like to try it regardless)

Just wondering if it would be wise to make a clone of my Sierra drive, then update to Mojave, then make a clone of Mojave and then update to Catalina.

In my humble opinion - I would just make a back up of Sierra and then use migration assistant to pull all the data and info From Sierra into Catalina

The biggest concern for me would be music artwork etc. of your music files, but even there if you want to move forward you just have to deal with it

 

[amgff84]

I went back to High Sierra. I haven't noticed any major issues on Catalina though, I don't do much apart from browsing the Internet and play games.

 

[oatman13]

I am running Sierra on my 1TB Fusion Drive late 2012 iMac. I would like to update the OS from Sierra to Catalina. (I am aware that Catalina has issues but I would like to try it regardless)

Just wondering if it would be wise to make a clone of my Sierra drive, then update to Mojave, then make a clone of Mojave and then update to Catalina.

You can just use the macOS Catalina installer to upgrade from Sierra to Catalina. There is no need, and no benefit from using the intermediary installers.

Backing up is always a good idea, but following that up with a system migration is a complete waste of time. The installer actually moves your data aside, installs the OS, and then migrates it back. This is one of the ways Apple is able to allow full installs over itself without requiring a reinstall (like Windows).

 

[DanMR]

Ok, thanks everybody. That answers my question.

 

[tommiy]

Personally, if your using external monitors, I would say to stay at High Sierra. If your not using external monitors at all then I'd probably look at Catalina if you have no 32bit app dependency. Mojave 10.14.6 and Catalina have issues with external monitors that will frustrate you. Not insurmountable just result in you needing to manually take action on connectivity and wake from sleep.

 

[return2sendai]

Nope. Stay on Sierra.

 

[Fishrrman]

"I am running Sierra on my 1TB Fusion Drive late 2012 iMac. I would like to update the OS from Sierra to Catalina. (I am aware that Catalina has issues but I would like to try it regardless)"

My advice:
If you want to "try" Catalina, DO NOT do so on your "main OS drive".
Get an external SSD (128gb SSDs can be bought for less than $20).
Use THAT as your "test bed".
That way -- if something goes wrong on you -- you have not trashed your "good OS install" in the process.

I would consider upgrading the internal drive to Mojave, but would AVOID Catalina for the time being.
Mojave is smooth, stable and proven.
Catalina... is not.

 

[retta283]

If you are upgrading from Sierra, go to Mojave. Catalina is still not nearly as smooth as those two OSes were. I got lucky that my 2019 iMac shipped with Mojave.

 

[naerct]

I agree with previous poster, but I'd say that don't go past High Sierra as there are problems with using a fusion drive with APFS which is required for booting in Mojave or Catalina. I know several people still using High Sierra due to tethered shooting with an older medium format back. There are some nice abilities of the newer OSs, but nothing earthshaking. If you want to run the latest OSs, just separate the Fusion drive into its separate parts. I did that to a 2015 iMac with a 3TB Fusion drive and a 120GB SSD, and she just upgraded to Catalina without problems. I don't know if the tiny SSD packed with the 1 TB Fusion is big enough. I would say 64GB would be enough as long as you put all data elsewhere. A full, clean install with apps is only about 30GB, but you need another 20-30GB for the OS Swap File. Catalina is probably your last OS anyway as I know that's the plan (unofficial) for my 2012 MBP. I run both Mojave and Catalina on it and Mojave (final OS) and High Sierra on my cMP 2009 (12-core 3.33GHz with 48GB RAM, 8GB VRAM, and NVMe boot blades that are about 10X faster than an SSD in a drive bay [2,800MB/s])

 

[tommiy]

Hey Fishrrman, how have you dealt with returning the uefi back to the mojave version post installing catalina on a external drive? The Catalina update updates the uefi but then when back running Mojave i experienced popups from mojave reporting that the bios does not match apples released version. Trolling through the logs there appears to be a cron job that accesses apple to compare the hashes between the os and supported firmware versions once a week or month (can not remember which). I'm not too sure exactly what else it may do howver i can say that 15 minutes after getting that error my MAC would no longer reboot at all or even start up. Apple replaced the logic board under warranty to get it to run again.

 

[Fishrrman]

"Hey Fishrrman, how have you dealt with returning the uefi back to the mojave version post installing catalina on a external drive?"

I don't worry about any of this stuff at all.

My 2018 Mini boots Mojave from the internal drive (it will NEVER be upgraded "beyond Mojave", because I have too much older 32 bit software that cannot be replaced).

I have an EXTERNAL USB3 SSD with a copy of Catalina on it I boot now and then (just to "play with"). Boots and runs ok -- actually, pretty well, but again, it won't run my older software, so it has no chance to become my main OS.

When I'm done with Catalina, I disconnect it and reboot to my regular Mojave OS.

No problems going back and forth.
I don't understand why other folks run into them!

 

[madrich]

"I am running Sierra on my 1TB Fusion Drive late 2012 iMac. I would like to update the OS from Sierra to Catalina. (I am aware that Catalina has issues but I would like to try it regardless)"

My advice:
If you want to "try" Catalina, DO NOT do so on your "main OS drive".
Get an external SSD (128gb SSDs can be bought for less than $20).
Use THAT as your "test bed".
That way -- if something goes wrong on you -- you have not trashed your "good OS install" in the process.

I would consider upgrading the internal drive to Mojave, but would AVOID Catalina for the time being.
Mojave is smooth, stable and proven.
Catalina... is not.

Where can you buy an external 128gb SSD for less than $20?

 

[deviant]

Where can you buy an external 128gb SSD for less than $20?

Nowhere. You can buy a 182gb ssd for 20 bucks but then you need an enclosure which will be at least 7-10 bucks

 

[Fishrrman]

"Where can you buy an external 128gb SSD for less than $20?"

INLAND Professional 120GB SSD 3D NAND SATA III 6Gb/s 2.5" 7mm Internal Solid State Drive (120GB)

NO WAIT BOOT-UP, BETTER PERFORMANCE, RENEW YOUR PC WITH INLAND PROFESSIONAL SDD Fast start-up, loading and file transfers Get up to 520MB/s sequential read speeds for no-wait boot-up, shorter applications load times and quicker data transfer. Incredibly load and run games, videos and photos in an...

www.amazon.com

Yes, as deviant mentioned, you'll also need either an enclosure or perhaps a USB3/SATA dock or adapter/dongle.

Handy to have one around, in any case.

 

[biffuz]

I upgraded my 15" rMBP late 2013 from Sierra straight to Catalina (yes, I was a bit behind). No problems so far, and I use a 4k monitor.
But I strongly suggest an SSD.

 

[ambari]

I am running High Sierra 10.13 on my Imac Late 2009 , what are the ways I could upgrade to Mojave ?

 

[return2sendai]

Don’t. Mojave is kernal panics all the way. Catalina and Big Sur will give you iTunes-less headaches. Why do you want to upgrade?

 

[madrich]

Don’t. Mojave is kernal panics all the way. Catalina and Big Sur will give you iTunes-less headaches. Why do you want to upgrade?

Hmmmm. It must something peculiar about IMACs that you warn that Mojave is kernal panics all the way. My MBAir on Mojave runs SUPER!

 

[Jac Mac]

Requesting advice on if I should upgrade from High Sierra to another macOS (which/why/when) for my MacBook Pro Retina (15 inch Late 2013) currently v10.13.6 with 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7 processor, 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 memory, and graphics Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB? Thank you in advance for any input.

 

[pmiles]

Requesting advice on if I should upgrade from High Sierra to another macOS (which/why/when) for my MacBook Pro Retina (15 inch Late 2013) currently v10.13.6 with 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7 processor, 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 memory, and graphics Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB? Thank you in advance for any input.

If you have to ask someone else if you should, then you have no need to. People upgrade because they have to... hardware/software they want to run requires it, or because they want to... to play around with the new shiny.

Please keep in mind that later OSes were not developed with older hardware in mind, meaning older hardware gains no benefit from a newer OS. It can however be hampered by it. Case in point is if you have a mechanical hard drive and want to upgrade to Mojave. Mojave requires APFS as the default format. Prior to that you typically used MacOS Extended (or HFS+). APFS was designed PURELY with SSDs in mind. It makes mechanical drives run like slugs. So yeah, you get the new OS, but right along with it you get a hardware degradation... which in turn forces you to update your hardware to alleviate it. A degradation that you imposed by upgrading your OS.

So while your machine may be capable of running a later OS, it may not be prudent to run said OS. Reality is, an old PC can still run DOS today, just as well as it did when it was the latest OS. Same is true for Macs. Your computer doesn't need a new OS, the one that it shipped with is perfectly fine for all eternity. It's only when you change your hardware or applications that you run, that a newer OS may be required.

If you are the type to upgrade your OS to whatever the latest and greatest is... you are also the type that should be in the habit of buying the latest hardware there is... because that is really all a new OS is urging you to do... buy new hardware so that you can run the newer OS. See the cycle?

 

[rovostrov]

Requesting advice on if I should upgrade from High Sierra to another macOS (which/why/when) for my MacBook Pro Retina (15 inch Late 2013) currently v10.13.6 with 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7 processor, 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 memory, and graphics Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB? Thank you in advance for any input.

I have a 2012 MBP with 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD running 10.15.7 (Catalina) quite well. I think support for High Sierra ended in December 2020. If you would like the latest security updates and still have 32-bit applications you want to keep using, I'd recommend upgrading to Mojave. Keep in mind that security updates for Mojave should end later this year. If you have no 32-bit apps you'd like to contiune using, I'd upgrade to Catalina which should be supported with security updates until late 2022. I would not recommend upgrading to either unless you have a SSD in your Macbook as the experience with either (Mojave or Catalina) will be quite SLOOOWW

 

[amgff84]

It's too bad, High Sierra is a decent OS and it works well on a standard HDD. I'd pay for continued support on my High Sierra OS so I can safely use my MacBook for years to come.

 

[Poncho]

Been reading through this thread. I am running OSX Sierra and may need to upgrade the OS so as to run some new software. Now, some people here say to install any of the newer OS x's on an external SSD and boot from that. But I have heard that you cannot boot an HFS+ Mac (as mine is currently) from an external hard drive that has been converted to AFSP. Can anyone confirm this and save me the time and headache of installing, say, Catalina on an external SSD only to find that I can't boot from it, even though my iMac itself is supported. It's an iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2017).