is it safe to update to osx lion 10.7.4??

If you are that concerned then don't update. The next time you reinstall Lion you will get the latest version whatever it is at that time.

Or you can clone your system to an external drive and install the update on the external drive so you can test it out before installing it on your main drive. I suggest doing the following before installing the update.

Repair the Hard Drive - Lion

Boot from your Lion Recovery HD. When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported then click on the Repair Permissions button. When the process is completed, then quit DU and return to the main menu. Select Restart from the Apple menu.

Boot to the Recovery HD:

Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.

Yes, it is safe to update, so long as you have an appropriate backup (which you should always have anyway), so that you can return your system quickly back to its previous state if you have problems with the update.

If you don't have one already, buy an external USB drive (not Western; Toshiba are my own favourites), and use Carbon Copy Cloner (this is freeware) to back up your entire system. When that's done, you can happily update to 10.7.4.

Don't forget to backup your system to the clone on at least a weekly schedule once you've verified there are no problems with the update.

No, that is not correct. CCC won't fragment your drive. There's no need to defragment the drive as OS X does this on the fly for files smaller than 20 MBs.

Time Machine only backs up to one drive at a time which is true for any backup utility.

I think you are referring to Time Machine snapshots - OS X Lion- About Time Machine's "local snapshots" on portable Macs. CCC and most other backup utilities do not function like Time Machine, however, one should not be backing up to the startup drive. Time Machine snapshots are a special type of backup that Time Machine does when the normal backup drive is not connected. You can disable snapshots:

Open the Terminal in the Utilities folder and enter or paste the appropriate command line. Press RETURN and enter your admin password when prompted. It will not be echoed.

To turn them ON: sudo tmutil enablelocal

To turn them OFF: sudo tmutil disablelocal

Note that turning them OFF will also delete all existing snapshots.

But this may have nothing to do with your issue. Perhaps you have just run out of storage space and need a larger hard drive.

Backup utilities will backup everything on your hard drive except what you explicitly exclude. You can find the techinical details of how Autosave and Versions works here. As you will see the informations is stored within the document so it is simply backed up with everything else. If you have sensitive information then the only reliable protection is to use encryption. This can be done by using FileVault and full disk encryption. See:

OS X Lion- About FileVault 2

OS X Lion- Using FileVault 2 and Lion Recovery

I upgraded a couple of days ago and the update went very smooth. No issues to date and I have done considerable testing on all apps and HW. The only thing I notice is that the OS seems a bit snappier. Be sure to follow the 10.7.4 update with the Safari 5.1.7 update. As others have said a good backup using TM, CC, SuperDuper, or Disk Uitility Restore is the best insurance, lets you roll back to exactly where you were in case of any wierdness.

After you press RETURN you are prompted for your admin password. It will not be echoed to the screen. You will NOT see anything typed. After entering your password press RETURN again.

Kappy,

Thanks for the tip on deleting snapshots. I feel as if I don't need them around as I keep my MBP hooked up to my TM disk at least 16 hours a day and it usually runs in the background or, if I've just come inside from working outside, I plug it up and execute a TM backup. Don't know if it will make my SSD run any faster, but it's assuring knowing that I'm not 'wasting' 100GB of storage space.

Thanks,

Clinton

Ilmianfhm wrote:

For Mr Larry, How do you update your machine? using built-in sofware update or via apple support website?

I don't know about Kappy, but I use Time Machine and it has worked flawlessly for me. I also back up my documents onto DL DVDs... just in case. Oh and I also back up my Download folder to DVD - some of the Adobe image files, for instance, I'll make an install DVD from as well as backing up the dmg file. I'm not so anal (yet I know I've been lucky) to follow a rigorous IT back up plan and use two or three drives!

Cheers,

Clinton

I have always updaed using software update from my first update 10.5.3 to the present 10.7.4.