Is Mavericks making your machine run slow?

That's interesting, William. So here's my followup... What do you do where it is running on a Server, inside of Mavericks 10.9, e.g., OS X Server 3.01 (13S2015). Do you prevent appnap in the Server application, the other applications like a backup app, or both??

The key questions seems to me, whether you:

1. Upgrade to the first release version (I would not put an OS beta in a machine that you need for everyday work) on its first version. That's called push-all-the-buttons-now. Reviewers have a dedicated machine that's used for that function (reviews) only. Do you intend (or need) to immediately use all the "Gee-Whiz" new features or not?
2. Accept any/all risk of failures and their associated impact(s) to (and recovery from) your peace of mind, level of overall satisfaction with your investment in the technology, anguish, frustration, et al. Have a look at the EULA, it's in there.

Those questions are for each user to ask themselves and you have done it BEFORE an upgrade to ANY machine for a new OS, whether WIN UNIX or Mac. Caveat emptor!

Step back a minute. An OS upgrade is particularly serious as it is harder to do and affects everything about your machine not just one app. This seems to be an obvious point but one ignored by many in this thread, including me sometimes.

Message was edited by: HenryS

"Server" is actually just a "wrapper" -- it simply provides "hooks" into various individual applications. In fact, "Server" adds only ONE application -- server.app. All of the other parts (apps) which Server enables already exist as part of OSX. Finding those apps can be fun as most don't show up in /Applications or /Applications/Utilities.

... like trying to find "Network Utility" now under Mavericks -- "/System/Library/CoreServices/Applications"

Mavericks I believe is the reason Adobe Flash doesn't work properly with Safari on my Macbook Mid-2009 13".

AchiIIes wrote:

Mavericks I believe is the reason Adobe Flash doesn't work properly with Safari on my Macbook Mid-2009 13".

Flash Player problems are usually solved by first uninstalling it using using Flash Player Help /Uninstall Flash Player | Mac OS and then download a fresh copy to install from here.

If the problem persists and you are certain of this then you should start a new thread if you want help. This one has long outgrown it's usefulness.

William H. Magill1 wrote:

"Server" is actually just a "wrapper" -- it simply provides "hooks" into various individual applications. In fact, "Server" adds only ONE application -- server.app. All of the other parts (apps) which Server enables already exist as part of OSX. Finding those apps can be fun as most don't show up in /Applications or /Applications/Utilities.

Not that hard to to do, sir... /Library/Server/

The later versions of Server quoted have stabilized alot of the flakiness of those 'hooks' pasrticularly postgreSQL that caused trouble by losing that data. I've had very good stability now in Mavericks with Server's functionality and was able to restore that installing from scratch.

I have an old Mac Mini (model released fall 2009) with 4 GB of RAM (maximum amount in this machine) and the 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo.

It came with Snow Leopard and I never upgraded to Mountain Lion or Lion and I heard that those tended to run slower.

I upgraded to Mavericks almost two weeks ago. I had trouble booting for the first time in Mavericks, but that is my only complaint.

My system actually runs much FASTER now then it did before. The difference is really noticeable. My old system was so pokey that I couldn't wait to get a new computer. With Mavericks, it's working beautifully, and now I don't feel any urgent need to upgrade.

You can actually install as much as 8 GB in a 2009 Mac Mini.

😎

If you're going to run Maverick on older hardware like 2009 or lower, you're going to need an ssd hard-drive to get enjoyable experience in my opinion. My Macbook 2009-mid booted up in 27-30 seconds with ssd, and without it, it would take about 1 minute and 30 seconds on standard harddrive. Now if you buy an ssd hard-drive I'd only recommend the affordable ones like 250-240gigs that are priced around 150 when on sale. I think it would be crazy too pay much more for storage, but heck it's your money so you choose what you spend it on.

AchiIIes wrote:

If you're going to run Maverick on older hardware like 2009 or lower, you're going to need an ssd hard-drive to get enjoyable experience in my opinion.

Totally disagree. I have Macs flying along on Mavericks without SSDs. And I much prefer the disk space they offer. I have a couple on SSDs, but I disagree that you cannot have an enjoyable experience on Mavericks without one on an older machine.

Cheers

Pete

John Galt, am I missing something? For the late 2009 Mac Mini, Apple lists the maximum RAM as 4 GB. See http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4432#2 . If they're wrong on this, that would be great...

"If you're going to run Maverick on older hardware like 2009 or lower, you're going to need an ssd hard-drive to get enjoyable experience in my opinion."

I'm sure that an SSD makes ANY hardware more enjobable to use.

But that said, I have a late 2009 Mac Mini and Mavericks runs BETTER and FASTER than it did with its original OS, Snow Leopard. I upgraded straight from Snow Leopard to Mavericks and on Mavericks my Mac runs faster than it did when it was brand new.

I'm not talking boot time--I don't notice any significant difference there--but I dont' reboot that often anyway. Apps are a lot snappier on Mavericks. It's like I got a new computer!

That's my experience anyway.

Stridr8808 wrote:

am I missing something? For the late 2009 Mac Mini, Apple lists the maximum RAM as 4 GB.

Both MacTracker and EveryMac say 8GB and the latter includes the following footnote:

*Officially, this model is capable of supporting 4 GB of RAM, but as first reported by MacminiColo, this model unofficially can use 8 GB of RAM.

I went from an old 3,1 Mini to a Lion Server, 8GB RAM, standard Apple config, directly to Leopard Server with an SSD as boot and then to Mavericks (bypassing ML). My Mini is now loaded with 16GB RAM clean installed with Mavericks. I'm loving it with an SSD as the boot drive. It is also very easy to access. I traded up a couple of years ago and sold off my 3,1.

Regarding Mavericks installs, that one was the second smoothest upgrade of the four we did here. The smoothest was a stock iMac 2013 (13,1).

Stridr8808 wrote:

John Galt, am I missing something? For the late 2009 Mac Mini, Apple lists the maximum RAM as 4 GB. See http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4432#2 . If they're wrong on this, that would be great...

Apple only specifies RAM configurations that were available at the time the Mac was released. Check OWC's website - if they say 8 GB will work, it will.

Mavericks will run well in 4 GB though, due to the memory compression algorithm that was not present in ML. Apple's claim that memory compression will result in 4 GB effectively performing as if it were 6 GB is accurate, slightly conservative actually, in my testing of it. 8 GB will perform as if it were 12 GB.