preston122

Q: What happened to Sierra for Mac Mini mid-2010?

What happened to Sierra for Mac Mini mid-2010?  At first I saw that it was the bottom end of the system requirements.  Numerous citations on support pages and all over the web say "Mac Mini mid-2010 or newer."  But now after half a day wrestling with the install, I find it now has to be "mid-2011 or newer"!  Whaaaa changed??

"Never promise what you can't deliver!"

 

Mac mini (mid 2010), 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 8 GB memory, running OS X El Capitan 10.11.6

Mac mini, OS X El Capitan (10.11.6), null

Posted on Sep 22, 2016 2:29 PM

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Q: What happened to Sierra for Mac Mini mid-2010?

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  • by preston122,

    preston122 preston122 Sep 22, 2016 4:19 PM in response to stedman1
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Desktops
    Sep 22, 2016 4:19 PM in response to stedman1

    THanks!  (whew!)

  • by woodmeister50,

    woodmeister50 woodmeister50 Sep 23, 2016 2:58 AM in response to preston122
    Level 5 (5,589 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 23, 2016 2:58 AM in response to preston122

    I just installed Sierra on my 2010 Mini that I am using as a server

    yesterday and it is running just fine.  It took a pretty long time as

    it still has the original slow HDD in it (one of these days I need to

    stick an SSD in it).

     

    There is conflicting info on Apples web pages that I saw as well

    but figured I would just go ahead and try anyway.  well, install

    went just fine, not tricks, no hacks, no jumping through hoops.

    Just double clicked install and all went on its merry way.

     

    BTW, even did the install via Screen Sharing since my Mini is

    running headless.

     

    Screen Shot 2016-09-23 at 5.56.44 AM.png

  • by glencarl,

    glencarl glencarl Sep 24, 2016 7:12 PM in response to woodmeister50
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Desktops
    Sep 24, 2016 7:12 PM in response to woodmeister50

    Thanks for the post. My install on mini mid-2010 is staying at initiating message of 33 minutes for over an hour. I hope to post a success story after some patience.

  • by woodmeister50,

    woodmeister50 woodmeister50 Sep 25, 2016 4:08 AM in response to glencarl
    Level 5 (5,589 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 25, 2016 4:08 AM in response to glencarl

    It took a while for my install, but I don't recall it being over an hour though.

    Then again, i guess it has a lot to do with what you have installed on the

    drive and how much free space there is.

  • by glencarl,

    glencarl glencarl Sep 25, 2016 8:52 AM in response to glencarl
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Desktops
    Sep 25, 2016 8:52 AM in response to glencarl

    The install appears to be successful. The initiating message finally started proceeding after 2 hours. Just need to be really patient with the mac mini mid-2010.

  • by Csound1,

    Csound1 Csound1 Sep 25, 2016 8:57 AM in response to preston122
    Level 9 (50,876 points)
    Desktops
    Sep 25, 2016 8:57 AM in response to preston122

    The plot thickens, when I looked it said this:

    macOS Sierra requires at least 2GB of RAM and 8GB of storage space and will run on:[4]

    Sierra is the first version of macOS since OS X Mountain Lion, released in 2012, that does not run on all computers that the previous version supported.[5] Developers have created workarounds to install macOS Sierra on some Mac computers that are no longer officially supported.[6]

  • by woodmeister50,

    woodmeister50 woodmeister50 Sep 26, 2016 4:00 AM in response to Csound1
    Level 5 (5,589 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 26, 2016 4:00 AM in response to Csound1

    It is interesting that the 2010 Mini is the only one

    that you can install Sierra on that isn't an "i" series

    or Xeon processor.

     

    My guess it may have something to do with firmware that

    is present on late 2009 Macs or newer that isn't present

    on earlier models.

  • by shin-ichi,

    shin-ichi shin-ichi Sep 26, 2016 11:29 PM in response to preston122
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Sep 26, 2016 11:29 PM in response to preston122

    In Japan (as of Sep. 27) they still say Mac Mini Mid 2011 or later.

    I tried to install Sierra, but My mac mini 2010 already has Sierra Beta installed and the installer of the release version says 'you already have newer version installed' or something and I couldn't proceed.

    2016-09-27.png

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