upgraded mac 10.4.11 to snowleopard not enough memory

You need 2 GBs of RAM or more to install Mavericks. It's not just a hard drive concern.

Upgrading to Mavericks

You can upgrade to Mavericks from Lion or directly from Snow Leopard. Mavericks can be downloaded from the Mac App Store for FREE.

Upgrading to Mavericks

To upgrade to Mavericks you must have Snow Leopard 10.6.8 or Lion installed. Download Mavericks from the App Store. Sign in using your Apple ID. Mavericks is free. The file is quite large, over 5 GBs, so allow some time to download. It would be preferable to use Ethernet because it is nearly four times faster than wireless.

OS X Mavericks- System Requirements

Macs that can be upgraded to OS X Mavericks

1. iMac (Mid 2007 or newer) - Model Identifier 7,1 or later

2. MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer) - Model Identifier 5,1 or later

3. MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer) - Model Identifier 3,1 or later

4. MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer) - Model Identifier 2,1 or later

5. Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer) - Model Identifier 3,1 or later

6. Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer) - Model Identifier 3,1 or later

7. Xserve (Early 2009) - Model Identifier 3,1 or later

To find the model identifier open System Profiler in the Utilities folder. It's displayed in the panel on the right.

Are my applications compatible?

See App Compatibility Table - RoaringApps.

What Mac are you using, and how much RAM is in it?

It may be too old to run Mavericks, in which case you are better off keeping it at the level of Snow Leopard. Also, you will need 10.6.8 to use any old software that needs Rosetta to run, and won't run in 10.7 or later.

First, avoid "Clean My Mac". Which Mac are you using? (look under the Apple menu, about this Mac) I'm not sure, but I doubt any Mac that could run 10.4.11 is recent enough to run Mavericks.

A Late 2007 MBP came with Tiger.

Mid-2007 iMac.

Thing is, Clary64, did you really need Mavericks. Snow Leopard is an excellent System and while support is doubtful in the future, sensible usage will give you good service for some time ahead. Stick with it.

That's the first of the aluminium iMacs, when they were still 20" not 21.5" - however they will take a lot more than 1GB RAM, possibly up to 4GB? I would get more RAM installed to be honest, then the computer with 10.6.8 installed should give more life yet.

I've got 4GB of RAM on my machine which has been fine, but too many tabs open in Safari 5 soon eats it up, so I am going for another 8GB. However, you probably don't have that option, though I would still get as much RAM as you can.

If I can add a little more to Christopher's comment. You have the same machine as me and I have 6GB loaded and working fine for the last year or so. Prior to that I had 3GB

This model Mac is a good one, treat it with care and you will get good service from it. One never knows of course, but I don't foresee problems for some time ahead.

And while you may well be able to go as far as Mavericks ... dwell on it. Weigh up the Apps you have or want and check them against this table. It will show you what you may lose if you upgrade (or what you will have to re-purchase).

Application compatibility table - RoaringApps

And while you may well be able to go as far as Mavericks ... dwell on it. Weigh up the Apps you have or want and check them against this table. It will show you what you may lose if you upgrade (or what you will have to re-purchase).

Application compatibility table - RoaringApps

The other way to do this (which narrows things down to what's on your computer) is via About This Mac (Apple menu) then click More Info, then Software / Applications. Give it time to load, then drag the 'Kind' column next to the 'Application Name' column and click to sort by Kind. That way you can read off what you have that's either Intel or Universal Binary, which will run on Lion and after.

Anything marked Classic or PowerPC won't run, but there may be free download upgrades for some of the apps (or Donateware).

Stick with Snow Leopard. It is a great OS. With Mavericks you will lose all your older applications.

I would recommend installing 10.9 on a backup, running from there for a while and seeing how well you like it. Worst case scenario, you erase the backup. I would recommend maxing out the RAM to 6 GB first.

Mark Piaskiewicz1 wrote:

I would recommend installing 10.9 on a backup, running from there for a while and seeing how well you like it. Worst case scenario, you erase the backup. I would recommend maxing out the RAM to 6 GB first.

That's possible? Onto an external HD?

Why not? The installer asks where to install the OS. As long as the external drive has a GUID partition map, it'll show up as a potential location. If for some reason that doesn’t work right, just boot from a clone, go into Disk Utility and unmount the internal drive before downloading the Mavericks installer.