Upgrade from Mac OS X to Snow??

Im thinking about upgrading my fairly new Macbook to Snow Lep. Are there any big differences? Pros & Cons....... Is it worth my $30 bucks lol

Jesse said:

Im thinking about upgrading my fairly new Macbook to Snow Lep. Are there any big differences?....... Is it worth my $30 bucks lol

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Well...almost every major software update for probably the last 4-5 years has cost $100-$129 dollars...so is 10.6 (Snow Leopard) worth $30 bucks?

- Nick

I agree with Nick on this one, it's INCREDIBLY cheap for what your getting out of it as a new OS. You may not notice a lot of speed differences right away, but in the upcoming years when more and more applications can take advantage of OpenCL and Grand Central Dispatch.

They are also already nearing the second major update for 10.6 as well, so I think Apple is staying on top of things.

OH WOW haha I see... well talk about cheap. Will the upgrade take up any GB space, plz take into consideration that im at 166.51GB due to music and boot camp...runnin xp .

Jesse said:

OH WOW haha I see... well talk about cheap. Will the upgrade take up any GB space, plz take into consideration that im at 166.51GB due to music and boot camp...runnin xp .

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Actually one of the better benefits of 10.6 is that it is significantly smaller than 10.5. I've heard folks recouping 5-10+ gigs of hard drive space!

- Nick

Alright im convinced lol ill get it

Jesse said:

Alright im convinced lol ill get it

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At $29 bucks...it's definitely one of the best "bang for your buck" computer deals around!

- Nick

Haha, yea SL is pretty good for a thirty dollar OS. I think you made a good decision in upgrading.

Check the compatibility of your software first. If you use something that absolutely needs to work and it doesn't work with SL, you'll want to wait until it becomes SL ready. That said, I'm going to imagine that most products are SL ready at this point.

vansmith said:

Check the compatibility of your software first. If you use something that absolutely needs to work and it doesn't work with SL, you'll want to wait until it becomes SL ready. That said, I'm going to imagine that most products are SL ready at this point.

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You have a great point there Vansmith...the "official" release of ONYX for Snow Leopard just came out...what...yesterday?

Since 10.6 was released on August 28th...that took approx. 65 days...so it's very possible some other important programs not compatible with Snow Leopard may still be awaiting updates.

Great Point,

- Nick

pigoo3 said:

I've heard folks recouping 5-10+ gigs of hard drive space!

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Have you actually seen the before and after yourself? As I noted in another thread MacWorld reported less than a 2GB gain, with 6GB being the maximum gain, assuming a full installation of Leopard including all printer drivers. Without that, you gain alot. SL identifies your printer(s) and only installs the drivers you need.

toMACsh said:

Have you actually seen the before and after yourself? As I noted in another thread MacWorld reported less than a 2GB gain, with 6GB being the maximum gain, assuming a full installation of Leopard including all printer drivers. Without that, you gain alot. SL identifies your printer(s) and only installs the drivers you need.

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This is a well documented benefit of installing OS 10.6!!! I could supply you with enough links to "choke a horse"...but I will link just one from a fairly reputable source (Macintouch.com):

Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6) Review

As you can see they saved/recovered 6.7 gigs of hard drive space!

- Nick

after my upgrade I got about 5-6 GB of more free space

toMACsh said:

Have you actually seen the before and after yourself? As I noted in another thread MacWorld reported less than a 2GB gain, with 6GB being the maximum gain, assuming a full installation of Leopard including all printer drivers. Without that, you gain alot. SL identifies your printer(s) and only installs the drivers you need.

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Over 20GB gain for myself!
Admittedly, that is on the high end compared with other users. I'd say a safe assumption for most would be 5 - 10.

pigoo3 said:

Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6) Review

As you can see they saved/recovered 6.7 gigs of hard drive space!

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I see that they saved 1.8GB under System. Perhaps that is the "under 2GB" the MacWorld article was referring to. And you would get more if you had all the unneeded printer drivers before.

toMACsh said:

I see that they saved 1.8GB under System. Perhaps that is the "under 2GB" the MacWorld article was referring to. And you would get more if you had all the unneeded printer drivers before.

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I'm thinking when folks claim "space saved" or recovered...it's the overall total.

Formula:

HD space used before 10.6 install - HD space used after 10.6 install = space recovered.

- Nick

Read the MacWorld article and see what you think. It doesn't give a hint about any of the categories in the table from the link you posted. It just makes a blanket statement. I find it puzzling that they would report the larger numbers only as a "but if" after-thought.

If I have 2 Macs to upgrade - 1 iMac and 1 Macbook - do I have to buy 2 copies of the SL upgrade? Only had both about a month or so. Used PC for years.

ncsu86 said:

If I have 2 Macs to upgrade - 1 iMac and 1 Macbook - do I have to buy 2 copies of the SL upgrade? Only had both about a month or so. Used PC for years.

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If your two Macs are only a month old (assuming they are new computers...not used)...I'm surprised they did not come with Snow Leopard (OS 10.6) already pre-installed.

If these 2 Mac's are new...and didn't come with 10.6...then I believe that there is a special program for you to get 10.6 at a much reduced cost.

Here's the link:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/uptodate/

HTH,

- Nick

ncsu86 said:

If I have 2 Macs to upgrade...

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Well, that's not what this thread is about, but...
Contact the place where you bought the Macs. If only 2 months old, you might have purchased them at a time that qualifies you for free upgrades. If not, you can buy a 5-license Snow Leopard for less than 2 individual licenses.