first backup and upgrade from 10.6.8

Hello Group, I bought an external hard drive (Seagate Backup Plus 3 TB) and this weekend I'll be attempting my first backup. Assuming that I can do the backup part correctly, I come to the question of upgrading. I basically do internet mail and FB, use Pages and Word, Numbers and Excel, and dabble with iphoto, imovie, garage band, and play some games. For my very basic needs (here it comes), is it "worth it" for me to upgrade to a newer animal? I've always been a little bit concerned about there being a problem while upgrading and messing up a perfectly good computer just for the chance to upgrade features that I probably won't use. Is it risky to do an upgrade? The only non-great thing I've noticed is that I'm having a hard time looking at pictures on FB. The "heading" part of my main page disappears and it gets stuck sometimes. Other than that, things are working very smoothly. Any advice will be appreciated. Thank you.

PowerGoat said:

For my very basic needs (here it comes), is it "worth it" for me to upgrade to a newer animal?

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Let us know exactly what exact model computer you have…and it's specs. So we can verify what sort of OS upgrade path is possible.

- Nick

Hello Nick,

Thank you for helping out.

I have an iMac>>>
Model Identifier: iMac9,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.66 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 6 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz

and as I said, it is a 10.6.8. Are there any other details that I left out?

Your 2009 iMac can handle the latest release, Yosemite, however strongly suggest you consider two things.

1. Increase the memory to the maximum 8GB with memory from OWC or Crucial.

2. After you do the backup, erase and reformat the hard drive and then proceed with the upgrade. It is a pretty big jump four operating systems at one step.

I sure wouldn't install the latest OS X on that iMac, and my wife is using a two year older 24" iMac with SL 10.6.8 and is not experiencing any such problems, but it does have 6GB RAM installed.

Be aware that if you update beyond 10.6.8 older Power PC based programs no longer work and will need to be updated. This database is a good place to start checking.

Good stuff. Thank you all for your advice. Will follow and will check out that database.

Regardless of what you decide, if you have any data that's important to you, I'd advise creating a backup first as you mentioned in your subject and I'd suggest doing so ASAP.

Thanks, pm-r. Yes, I did the backup last night. It seems to have worked. I may or may not upgrade--or upgrade that much--but at least the back up is done!