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Level 1

4 points

Best OS for MBP mid 2009

Hi,

I have 13" mid 2009 MBP running 10.6.8. I had not upgraded the OS until now as I feared the performance will go down as it only has 2 GB RAM.

However, it has now reached to a level where its just becoming painful to use the system, so I am planning the following upgrade:

1. Max out RAM to 8 GB

2. Swap out optical drive for 250GB SSD for OS and keep the old 160 GB Hard Drive.

What I am not sure is with above upgrade which OS will be best suited for my MBP? I was planning to put Mavericks as I have heard both Yosemite and El Captain will not run that smooth on an older version of the macbook pro. I would really appreciate if someone can advice which will be the best OS? I mainly use my laptop for word processing and emails and yes light room 4.

Also, should I swap the optical drive for the new SSD or the old HDD? (My optical drive doesn't work anyways). I was earlier planning to get 500GB SSD but then decided to go for 250 and save some money as I have 1 TB external hard drive which I use since I work on multiple machines most of the times.

Any other advice or point I should keep in mind during the upgrade?

Many Thanks

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Feb 12, 2016 10:10 AM

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Allan Eckert

Level 9

79,518 points

Posted on Feb 12, 2016 10:11 AM

El Capitan

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39 replies

dvinny Author

Level 1

4 points

Apr 14, 2016 3:50 AM in response to MichelPM

Thanks... Will keep this in mind ...

I was just wondering if it is possible to make a bootable USB for 10.6.8 I do have the original DVD but its not 10.6.8 and now I dont have optical drive to use them.

Can I create a bootable drive in case I have to do a clean install of 10.6.8

dvinny Author

Level 1

4 points

Apr 14, 2016 3:51 AM in response to MichelPM

deleting them from /System/Library/Extensions would do the trick right ?

MichelPM

Level 10

80,980 points

Apr 14, 2016 4:47 AM in response to dvinny

No.

There are vestiges of the RIM Blackberry software in Launch Agents and Launch Daemons, too!

dvinny Author

Level 1

4 points

Apr 14, 2016 5:52 AM in response to MichelPM

Ahh.. is there is a simple way OR an application I can use to clean these up .. there has to be an easy way for non-technical ppl like me ... Any suggestions !!

BobHarris

Level 9

53,267 points

Apr 14, 2016 7:41 AM in response to dvinny

dvinny wrote:

I was just wondering if it is possible to make a bootable USB for 10.6.8 I do have the original DVD but its not 10.6.8 and now I dont have optical drive to use them.

Can I create a bootable drive in case I have to do a clean install of 10.6.8

No. Not really. The installation DVD is the bootable installer for Snow Leopard 10.6.8

You can put a clean install of Snow Leopard on an external USB device, and then clone it to another drive using Disk Utility -> Restore, should you need to apply the clean install to another disk.

BobHarris

Level 9

53,267 points

Apr 14, 2016 7:44 AM in response to dvinny

So if I just select the new drive during the installation I will get to keep both the OS i.e. 10.6.8 and El Capitan?

Yes.

BobHarris

Level 9

53,267 points

Apr 14, 2016 7:50 AM in response to dvinny

Also, below is the Etrecheck report. Is there anything I should be worried about? Thanks

You are doing a clean install of El Capitan onto the SSD, so none of the things you have installed on Snow Leopard are going to be there.

I would suggest that you start by just seeing how well El Capitan runs "As Is" before you start adding things.

Then ONLY add the things you absolutely need, and do them one at a time making sure they work well.

Finally, make sure anything add is the latest El Capitan compatible version. Do not install the version you originally installed on Snow Leopard, as things may have chanced over the years. Especially the ones that install Kernel Extensions, as they are the most sensitive to operating system version changes, being that they run fully privileged and can touch anything, even if they should not. The Kernel is all powerful in what it can access.

dvinny Author

Level 1

4 points

Apr 17, 2016 9:12 AM in response to BobHarris

Thanks for help everybody.. I have now got 250 GB SSD and El Capitan running smooth (Not sure if it is because of the SSD or the OS or just the fact that the OS does not have any applications right now)

I am in process of installing the apps I need but I was just wondering what will happen if I just straight away run the application from El Capitan which was installed on Snow Leopard?

The reason I am asking is because I could see potlight on El Capitan showing me results of apps that are installed on Snow Leopard and I was very tempted to launch the app but then remembered your tip around the kernel thing and stopped myself.

Also you mentioned "Do not install the version you originally installed on Snow Leopard, as things may have chanced over the years" . I have a copy of LR4 and now I am thinking whether I will be able to move to El Cap permanently or not.

Whats the worst that could happen if I launch LR4 from EL Cap?

Drew Reece

Level 6

10,660 points

Apr 17, 2016 10:09 AM in response to dvinny

You may need to be more specific about 'the application'. Most 'drag installed' apps can run from anywhere but apps with installers can also create supporting files that won't exist in a clean system. Frankly it is best to reinstall apps from the developers source IMO. That way you get the latest version for your OS.

I don't use Lightroom, so my guess is that the worst that could happen is that the library is damaged & you could be left with a mess to fix, obviously that won't be a problem if you have a full backup of the data on another disk. Adobe's other apps install supporting files so I'd suggest reinstalling, just in case, I suspect it has system wide filters etc. Also try to check if Lightroom on 10.11 is still supported for use on 10.6 if you want to edit the library from each OS. Not all versions support older DB or file formats.

Personally I try to eject other OS installation disks to avoid the results appearing in Spotlight, you may have older PowerPC apps that won't run on 10.11 but are ok on 10.6.8. That can be made permanent via startup scripts (or via /etc/fstab) if you only want to see one OS, I'm not clear on your setup, so it may not be required.

Best OS for MBP mid 2009