Upgrade from Yosemite to Sierra?

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Level 1

23 points

Upgrade from Yosemite to Sierra?

This weekend I might "attempt" to install Sierra to my late 2009 iMac currently (8GB RAM, 1TB HD) running Yosemite. I say "attempt" because I tried to install El Capitan about a year ago when it first came out and that didn't go well at all! Thank God I had Yosemite and all my stuff backed up with Time Machine on an external 1 TB HD! Since then, I haven't gone near trying to upgrade to El Capitan again and due to that experience, I'm leery of trying to upgrade to Sierra. Yosemite runs fine for me and doesn't give me any problems. My system meets the requirements for Sierra, but then again, it meets them for El Capitan too, but that apparently doesn't mean anything. My main question is should I upgrade from Yosemite to Sierra? Is it worth it? Has it been out long enough that the bugs are worked out of it and, unlike El Capitan, install smoothly? Thanks!

iMac, OS X Yosemite (10.10.5)

Posted on Dec 15, 2016 10:40 PM

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Answer 1

Alisa13

Level 1

8 points

May 19, 2017 10:13 AM in response to timboone55

You are giving me hope! I am in the same situation (Yosemite to Sierra, 2014 MacAir). I don't have an external hard drive to back up to, but I will before proceeding! Also, I have never used Time Machine before but it is on my list. Looks like now is the time.

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Answer 2

steve626

Level 6

13,893 points

Aug 3, 2017 8:17 PM in response to Alisa13

I recently updated a 2013 MacBook Air and a 2010 MacBook Air to Sierra 10.12.6. The 2013 machine was running 10.8.4 (yes, Mountain Lion as originally purchased, never upgraded the OS, don't blame me, blame my daughter, it is her computer) and the 2010 machine was running 10.11.6. Both upgrades were uneventful; the only thing I had to do was to reinstall the Epson and Canon printer drivers for the laptop that had been on 10.8.4 for the past four years. Nothing else was required. This is anecdotal, your experience may be different. If I were you, because you had a failed upgrade attempt earlier, I would make a clone of your disk on an external drive and update that external drive first just to make sure all is ok, as others have already suggested. Before I did any updating I had two independent backups of each laptop -- one being a "clone" and one being a Time Machine backup.

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Answer 3

dialabrain

Level 10

136,127 points

Dec 15, 2016 11:40 PM in response to timboone55

All I can say is El Capitan should have installed just fine. Sierra should install just fine. The reason El Capitan may not have installed correctly or you had problems once installed is no doubt because of third-party software that you had installed in Yosemite.

You could of course install Sierra on a separate partition/drive and test it first.

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Answer 4

Eau Rouge

Level 8

42,656 points

Dec 15, 2016 11:45 PM in response to timboone55

Well both El Capitan and Sierra are fine, so why you had a problem with installing El Capitan may be a problem with your mac. You can check if everything is ok with it by downloading and installing this, http://etrecheck.com/#about

you can post the results here, if you need any further help. What problems did you have with El Capitan?

If you are going to give Sierra a try you could install it to an external drive if you have one, or make a partition on your internal and install it there, and road it test before you commit. Always make sure you have a current back up of your system (two is even better).

Run Disk Utility Verify/Repair to check for any problems. Before upgrading to Sierra make sure your third party apps are compatible, and/or have updates that are supported in Sierra. You can use this site to check, https://roaringapps.com/apps?platform=osx

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Answer 5

John Galt

Level 10

155,750 points

Dec 16, 2016 12:17 PM in response to timboone55

Please read Upgrading to macOS "Sierra" without fear.

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Answer 6

timboone55 Author

Level 1

23 points

Dec 17, 2016 2:26 PM in response to timboone55

Thanks for the inputs everybody ---- greatly appreciated! When I tried to upgrade to El Capitan from Yosemite about a year ago, it was when El Capitan just came out and people were having problems with it loading on their machines. I remember reading about the same errors on here and yes, I was one of them! It would hang-up computers and just sit there. So I reinstalled Yosemite and was "gun shy" of El Capitan ever since then.

Since Sierra came out, I've been reading about it and mulling it over for awhile now. It's probably the last OS I'll be able to install on my iMac here (late 2009) which I love and have had since March '10. So after reading your inputs, running CleanMyMac 3, and backing up everything I had with Time Machine to my external 1TB HD, I held my breath and started the download/installation of Sierra from the App Store. I'm writing this to you now via my "new" Sierra installation! It all went without a hitch and I'm very pleased to report that here. Thanks again for the help and encouragement!

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