Sierra or Catalina?

[philrock]

Mellow greetings! I've read a few accounts of folks migrating to Catalina with older Macs and the main point of issue seems to be HDD v. SSD. I have a MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2012) with a 256SSD.

Currently running Sierra and originally decided to skip High Sierra because Sierra runs great and none of the new features impressed me. I have felt that way with subsequent releases but now I'm starting to feel left behind... As I mentioned, this machine runs like a champ with Sierra, I am just a casual user--email, Office, browsing, photos, etc.

My only actual gripe with this machine is the screen size. This was primarily a travel machine when I got it, now it is my primary. I am waiting to see if a 14" gets released otherwise I am seriously considering a 16". I know 14" isn't much bigger....

Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro10,2
Processor Name: Intel Core i7
Processor Speed: 2.9 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 2
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 4 MB
Memory: 8 GB

My question: should I leave well enough alone or give Catalina a shot? Thank you.

 

[tommiy]

Personally, if you must upgrade to goto Mojave rather than Catalina. Thats if you really want to upgrade. Otherwise I would stay where you are, avoid the waste of time and possible other problems since it runs well today.

 

[profdraper]

Totally agree - and if Apple 'allows' you - Mojave NOT Catalina.

 

[chabig]

Currently running Sierra and originally decided to skip High Sierra because Sierra runs great and none of the new features impressed me.

User facing features shouldn't be the only factor to drive your upgrade decisions. Apple does a lot of work to the underlying system architecture that you don't see, in terms of operating system advancement, security improvements, stability improvements, and performance improvements.

 

[lfaa]

I updated my previous MB (mid 2010) up to High Sierra and that last OS was very good. I do think like Chabig above that High Sierre has many 'invisible' improvements and deserves to install it. Now with a new 2019 MB on Catalina.... oh no !

 

[Taz Mangus]

You could take a test drive by creating a new partition and install Catalina on it.

 

[philrock]

Thanks for the input. I understand changes

User facing features shouldn't be the only factor to drive your upgrade decisions. Apple does a lot of work to the underlying system architecture that you don't see, in terms of operating system advancement, security improvements, stability improvements, and performance improvements.

I totally understand that. Sometimes those changes make the user facing experience miserable tho...It's a balance. I would argue that stability and performance aren't always improved when upgrading older machines with the latest. It's Vintage status now, Catalina will probably the last OS this particular machine will support.

 

[philrock]

Moved to Mojave and so far so good! Thank you all for your input.

 

[tommiy]

Yes Mojave is far more stable and reliable than Catalina. Unfortunately for my 2017 MAC the last supplementary updates started the back external monitor problems which Apple have continued in various forms in each release of Catalina. There now sems to be a distinct pattern with Catalina with Apple hardware and OS not matching resulting in many people impacted by bricking the MAC in one shape or form and/or teh software crashing frequently. I'd recommend staying on Mojave and see what 10.16 brings. I personally lost a logic board on upgrading to 10.15.1 and the machine was working perfectly before hand, just not afterwards. Wait and see if Apple ever gets their mojo back....and if not then rest comfortably that at least your MAC runs.

 

[Jack Neill]

Mojave’s going to go down in history as the new Snow Leopard

 

[Macsonic]

Still using Mojave and High Sierra and very stable OS. No plans on migrating to Mac OS Catalina as I’m still using 32-bit apps. Need the 32 bit apps for my work.

 

[philrock]

Yes Mojave is far more stable and reliable than Catalina. Unfortunately for my 2017 MAC the last supplementary updates started the back external monitor problems which Apple have continued in various forms in each release of Catalina. There now sems to be a distinct pattern with Catalina with Apple hardware and OS not matching resulting in many people impacted by bricking the MAC in one shape or form and/or teh software crashing frequently. I'd recommend staying on Mojave and see what 10.16 brings. I personally lost a logic board on upgrading to 10.15.1 and the machine was working perfectly before hand, just not afterwards. Wait and see if Apple ever gets their mojo back....and if not then rest comfortably that at least your MAC runs.

This machine will go to the grave with Mojave. I hope to replace it later this year and I will either sell it or pass it down to my 7yo.

 

[snowyjoey]

I know it's a bit of an oldie, but it was a golden oldie for me

I just bought a used MBP Mid 2012. It came with Catalina but it wont shut down or reboot. It has had an SSD installed but the seller said it always worked perfectly and it never had this problem. I then discovered he only ever used El Capitan, never used Catalina but installed it for sale as most people want newer OS.

I am a bit lover of older OS's, and I detest the increased privacy invasions and useless features thrown into Apple OSX nowadays. One such example, on both my work machines, I use iTunes all day while I work. Nice play/pause button on the keyboard so I can pause for phone calls, and then back to Enya afterwards - NOT ANY MORE, DAMMIT! Now one of the 3.7 million youtube tabs I have open start playing every time I hit play or pause. I have to load up my (nicely hidden) iTunes and CLICK the darn thing, that sounds so minor, but it aint, it's a royal pain in the ass!

Anyways... I was researching my problem with failed restarts on Catalina when I found this thread. I have installers for the last 5 or 6 OS's, all except High Sierra. Could the OP or anyone else advise on what I should go for? I hear there's a new one called Big Slur, news to me. I dont even find out about releases until months after they come out, I just don't care for new stuff when old stuff works perfectly (which few OS's do these days).

Maybe I should go back to El Cap or Sierra, or maybe up to Mojave. I would love some votes here if anyone has any thoughts. Thanks

PS I don't use any icloud services, idrive, or even mac mail any more. I have just had enough of the Apple ecosystem but I still love the machines, secure and easy to use, and rather beautiful. I just don't want ANY of the bells and whistles, advice on how many steps I need to make to stay healthy, automatically changing my screen darkness to help my eyes, F*** OFF Apple, just let me use what I want, my way, and stop hanging my machine with spurious processes trying to report what the hell I am doing and how I do it. (Soap Box Dismounted)

 

[4bs]

Moved to Mojave and so far so good! Thank you all for your input.

I upgraded my mid 2012MBP to Catalina with no problems whatsoever. I also took the plunge and installed a 1tb SSD, moved the original HDD to the optical bay, and upped it to 16Gb ram.. No glitches, no problems.

 

[snowyjoey]

I don't want Catalina, but thanks for comment. I would ideally like to go back, UNLESS Mojave is a significant jump up from say High Sierra or El Cap