Upgrade to el capitan

I have a mid 2011 21.5" iMac with the following specifications:

2.5 GHz Intel Core i5 processor
4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 memory
OS X Lion 10.7.5 (11G63b)
500 GB SATA Disk with about 300 GB free space.

I never got around to upgrading to Yosemite. I have never made a Time Machine backup either, use an external hard drive to back up my personal files that I most don't want to lose.

I was planning to upgrade to El Capitan by the following steps:
1) make a Time Machine backup (bought a 1 TB external hard drive today to use for this)
2) upgrade memory (I purchased two 4 GB 1333 MHz memory chips today, will give me a total of 12 GB - 2 X 2 GB and 2 X 4GB chips)
3) download El Capitan

Question: should I make a bootable CCC (didn't know what this was until today) also, as well as the Time Machine backup? Or could I just make a bootable USB drive which I could use to reinstall Lion?

Thanks very much for any advice or suggestions, I know I am not that computer savvy so don't worry about hurting my feelings, I know I am a dummy about this stuff.

Regards
Dan

Also: I am not a heavy duty computer user - have two forums which I browse daily, read the news on various alternate news website, use microsoft excel for mac for financial spreadsheets, and that it is about it.

It would be better to make a bootable clone because if something goes south in the upgrade you'll be able to boot from the clone and at least get going again.

What I would do is:

Make the CCC clone of your entire drive to the new external.
Boot from it to make sure it's all good.
Download the El Cap installation file. (When it is done downloading it will automatically launch. Cancel it at that point because you'll want to save the install file as a backup and the installation process deletes the installation file when it is done.
Find the install file (named "Install OS X El Capitan" and in your Applications folder. Copy it to the CCC clone for now. Anywhere will do.
Run the installation program. It will take a while. The default will be to install OVER your Lion installation leaving your data and applications intact. If you want to repartition/reformat that will get you a "clean" installation. If you do that, when you boot for the first time it will offer to migrate everything for you. Take that opportunity to have it do that and point to the CCC clone for the source. When it is done, it will have created an account on the new system with exactly the same name and login as you had originally and all your stuff should be in place as it was before.

An alternative approach would be to get an 8GB USB memory stick and use DiskmakerX to create a bootable USB stick with the installer on it. Then boot from that USB stick and do the installation from there. Using this approach you can still have a CCC or TM backup on the external drive. In this case TM will probably be ok because the stick is bootable in an emergency so the TM backup should be all you need to restore your system.

The memory upgrade can be done anytime. ElCap will run in 4Gb, will love 12Gb. I would do one thing at a time, however, so that if something goes wonky, you know what you last changed.

Be patient, this is a lengthy process and at times it looks like nothing is happening. Let it run to completion. It will take hours to be done with the backup, hours for the installation and more hours to be done with restoring from your external. I'd say plan to invest at least a full workday to this, or if you are doing this at night, two nights.

ONE LAST THOUGHT: I'd ask myself "why do this?" If all you do is surf, email and financial spreadsheets and are happy with performance, maybe the pain of this upgrade isn't worth it. That machine is now 5 years old, which is pretty good, and about the time the hardware starts to creak a bit, Apple will drop support for Lion and you'll have two reasons to get a new system. Start saving pennies?

Also, what "features" might the OP want or use if installing the latest and then there's the likelihood of possibly newer and expensive compatible software, and then things like hardware to consider, besides adding RAM, will the printer still work with any OS X upgrade??? It can be both time consuming AND expensive!!

For the OP's mentioned usage I wouldn't bother. I do a lot more with my mid-late 2011 27" iMac and 20GB RAM, and older iPad 2 but I'm still only running Mavericks 10.9.5.

Thanks for the advice MacInWin, I will take it all under advisement. Yesterday made a Time Machine backup and installed the new memory chips. Still pondering on how I should proceed from here.
pm-r, the only purchased software I have on my computer is Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac. If it needs to be upgraded to run on El Capitan, I get a deal through work and can download it cheaply. The thing I am concerned about is that I no longer get any Apple updates, haven't had an update, except for iTunes, for quite some time, so it seems Apple is no longer supporting Lion OS X 10.7.5? I cannot find anywhere that I can upgrade to Yosemite or Mavericks, seems like I have to go to El Capitan?
As a side issue, it really irks me that I cannot remove iTunes from my computer, I have never used it and never will, and yet, it is the only thing I keep getting updates for.
Regards and thanks for the advice
Dan

Yes, Apple has removed the installer for Yosemite and Mavericks and now only El Cap is available. If you had downloaded those installers earlier, they would be available on your Purchased tab in the MAS. There haven't been updates to Lion for a long time, as it is now 4 iterations back. As for iTunes, just ignore it. If you don't want it on the Dock, click and drag the icon to the desktop and it will go poof and disappear. You'll still get updates to that, but moving to El Cap means you'll start getting updates to both it and the bits and pieces that have been upgraded with it. Not sure if that is good news or not???

I downloaded Diskmaker X to make a bootable USB prior to doing anything else. Saved it to my applications folder and opened it. Turns out I couldn't make a bootable drive of Lion OS X 10.7.5. I have a window open on my computer with diskmaker asking me what I want to make a bootable disc of: Mavericks, Yosemite or El Capitan. As I don't have any of those, i tried to quit Diskmaker X. It will not let me and I can not figure out how to get rid of the open window. Thought I would download El Capitan and then would have it to make a bootable USB. When I went to the app store to do that, found out I have to set up an apple id. Went through the process, but it would not let me make an apple id without giving a credit card. The option to select "None" for a payment option is on the screen, but it won't work. When I complete the rest of the screen, with none selected for payment option and hit create apple id, it takes me back to payment option? I really don't want to give apple a credit card number as I have no intention of ever downloading anything from them that I have to pay for. Any advice, please.
Regards
Dan

To get out of Diskmaker, try just selecting one of the options and then see if you can cancel after that. As for the App store, I don't have any solution other than to call Apple. They do have a way for you to not provide a credit card, but since I DO buy stuff, I just gave them one (or maybe used PayPal, I don't remember).

Got out of Diskmaker by going to the activity monitor, selecting diskmaker from my proceses, and then had to force quit to get it to quit. I will send an email to apple support to see about the other issue. Paypal was not listed as an payment option on the page I was on.
Thanks very much for the advice and the patience.
Regards
Dan

Did you see this: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204034

I had not previously seen this, thank you!
Dan

Ok, so I got the apple id figured out and downloaded El Capitan. Cancelled the installation process and the Install OS X El Capitan file is now in my applications folder. It will not let me copy it. Tried to copy it to a 16 GB thumb drive and to a 250 GB external hard drive. Both times I got an error message that says the file is too large for the drive I am trying to copy it to?
Thanks for any advice?

I would bet both are formatted FAT, which has a 4GB limitation. You don't need to actually put it on an external drive, just put a copy somewhere OTHER than in the Applications folder. That one will be deleted once the installation is done, but if you put a copy in, say, Documents, then that one will still be there to save you the download if you need to do it again. Then use DiskmakerX and use the thumb drive to make a bootable installation drive.

Thanks once again.
Dan

I think I have successfully completed an upgrade to El Capitan? I downloaded the installer, saved it applications and documents. Made a bootable USB using Diskmaker X and then booted the computer from the bootable USB. The El Capitan installer file is still in both locations on my hard drive? The computer is running on ElCapitan and everything seems to be good, excel is working, access to internet is good. My question is: am I running off of the USB drive, or has El Capitan been installed on the iMac ie. what happens when I eject the bootable USB?
Thanks
Dan

danno50 said:

what happens when I eject the bootable USB?

Click to expand...

Easy answer.

- Eject the external HD
- Reboot the computer
- Apple Menu
- About This Mac
- Then see what OS version is indicated

If it says "10.11.2". Then El Capitan was installed on the internal drive.

- Nick

Can't tell from here. Go ahead and close down properly, then remove the USB drive and reboot and see what you get. If it doesn't work, reboot from the stick and try again.

Figured that was probably the way to proceed, but wasn't sure. Did that and came up in El Capitan. Looks like a successful upgrade, thank you very much for getting me through it.
Regards
Dan

Put the bootable USB in a drawer (hopefully you'll never need it), delete the installers from the two locations, and enjoy your upgrade. If I may suggest, take a look at Apple's page about El Cap (http://apple.com/osx) and read up on the fabulous new features. Here's a column I was just reading this morning about one of them:

http://www.macnn.com/articles/16/01/15/you.know.you.want.to.132047/

Thanks chas_m, done and done. Everything is working very well and I am very happy with the upgrade.
Dan