Sierra upgrade contemplated

Hi
I have a 2014 Mac Book Pro running el capitan.
The system is telling me that Sierra upgrade is available.
Are there any issues?
Do you recommend upgrading immediately?
Does Sierra have any issues with other platforms?

Any guidance will be much appreciated.

It depends on how you use your MBP. Is it used for work/income? If it is, and it needs to be in use constantly, and it is working fine now, stay with what you are using, and upgrade when you have time to work out any issues that arise. It will still be available for a while, so no rush. If you want to see how macOS Sierra looks and feels, you can download it and install it to a separate partition or external disk.

I have been running beta versions of OS X and macOS since the beta public program was started. That means I have been doing a lot of downloading and installing and I never had any problems downloading and installing any beta or stable release. I have an Internet connection which can be slower than a snail in Wisconsin during January and at times downloading can take forever and gets interrupted. The App store seems to keep track of how much of a download occurred and when I return to the download I don't have to start from the beginning. The App Store picks up when it left off. Oh, once when I decided to install Win 10 on my Parallels installation, I started the download just before I went to bed and it hadn't finished downloading by the time I woke up.

So all things considered, go ahead and upgrade to Sierra. While I do understand the philosophy of if it ain’t broke don't fix it, I also believe that running the current version of OS's and other software is more important. I imagine that there have been millions of downloads by now and there are no problems dominating the Sierra blogs so it is safe to do. If you own any other Apple product like an iPad or iPhone and even another Mac, the latest versions of Apple's OS's always have new features which are fun to try and use.

If you want your Mail to work - don't make the switch to Sierra. I'm sorry I did.

ShabbyChick123 said:

If you want your Mail to work - don't make the switch to Sierra. I'm sorry I did.

Click to expand...

May I ask what problems you are having with the Sierra Mail v10.1 program?

I have been using the quirky Mozilla Thunderbird program for a while now and since I hadn't heard any negative chatter about Apple Mail for a while I just switched back to Mail a couple of days ago. So far Mail seems to be handling my 7 email accounts properly. It's too bad cannot say the same about SpamSieve. I had been tearing my hair our trying to configure SpamSieve before and that was one reason I switched to Thunderbird. As weird as Thunderbird can be and is, it handled the spam quite well.

Did I make a mistake coming back to Apple Mail?

Symmbo, I would suggest that at the very least you go to the App Store and start the Sierra Installer download. You do not even need to complete the download, just start it and let in download for a few minutes. Once you have done that it will be added to your "purchased" page and you may then download it any time in the future, even if Apple releases a new macOS and removes it from the App store it will remain available in your "purchases" page.

As for the Mail issues mentioned by ShabbyChick123 I cannot really comment. As far as I can see my Mail app works but I abandoned this app years ago and have been using AirMail as my email client ever since with no problems.

ferrarr said:

It depends on how you use your MBP. Is it used for work/income? If it is, and it needs to be in use constantly, and it is working fine now, stay with what you are using, and upgrade when you have time to work out any issues that arise. It will still be available for a while, so no rush. If you want to see how macOS Sierra looks and feels, you can download it and install it to a separate partition or external disk.

Click to expand...

Couldn't agree more and that's an understatement, and I'd suggest doing anything else is just stupid IMHO!!! There are just too many user variables out there these days.




- Patrick
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I know in an earlier post I recommended to go ahead and install Sierra but I was assuming (and should have stated it) your installation would not be on your working HD or partition. As others have said, if your primary HD/partition/machine is working then don't fix it. If your El Capitán machine works well then don't rush to upgrade. Install Sierra somewhere where you can test, play and learn before you switch over to Sierra permanently. I always test drive new OS versions before I buy and park it in my garage permanently.

Perhaps I should have mentioned that my MacPro is just for personal use not business.

My advice is that if/when you install it be very careful with the setup after installation and don't make the mistake that I did.

I rushed through the setup and inadvertently allowed Sierra to save all my Documents and Desktop to the iCloud Drive. OK if you want it but I certainly didn't and it caused me a few issues to resolve. Other than that Sierra is great and presented no other problems.

Thank you to all who have given me some sound advice.
I'll start the download and then pause it, to be finished another day!

pm-r said:

Couldn't agree more and that's an understatement, and I'd suggest doing anything else is just stupid IMHO!!! There are just too many user variables out there these days.

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How big should the new partition be to try out Sierra? For instance, my 500 G drive has 125G free, what would you guys recommend for partition size?

I have made an installation USB drive for Sierra. After partitioning, do you just plug in that USB drive and start the installer? I'm assuming that it will ask me where to install Sierra. Is that correct?

TIA.

How big should the new partition be to try out Sierra? For instance, my 500 G drive has 125G free,

Click to expand...

Personally Dave, in your case with only 125GB free, I wouldn't even bother, but I would suggest at least getting an external drive and then install and do any migrating onto it.

At least you'd end up with a backup drive you can always use.

PS: I didn't realize that some 21.5" iMacs only came with a 500GB HDD.





- Patrick
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Thanks, Patrick. I do have two external drives, one for my CCC and one for Time Machine. I'll probably do a clean install after Canon and Apple get a fix available.

Go for it James everything for me runs well. The only suggestion i would make for you is to do a format and clean install Symmbo.