Mojave - functional changes vs ElCapitan?

krs


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I'm planning to upgrade all the Macs in the family from ElCapitan to Mojave.

As part of the initial investigation, I want to find out what functional changes Apple made to any existing capabilities.
I wonder if that was covered in any thread here already I can refer to.

What I am specifically looking for a subtle changes in any of the Apple apps that are either part of the OS or very common Apple apps like iWork.

I tried a clean install of Mojave on an external drive and that took me three tries to complete.
In stalling the OSwas straight forward but the migration of the data from ElCapitan caused some problems.
First time around the migration just stopped about 20% in - I eventually ran Disk Utility on the Mojave installer and something was repaired.
Then tried migration again - it supposedly finished, but I couldn't boot into the partition with Mojave on it - when I held the option key down none of the bootable abckups (which were ElCapitan) nor the Mojave partition showed up. It was almost as if the one partition which was APFS prevented any bootable partition from showing.
Then tried migration again - it finished again, this time all bootable partitons showed up but I couldn't boot into the partition with Mojave on it - I got to the apple logo on the screen but the progress bar never showed.
So then I decided to try a different external - this time after about a six hour exercise, I finally ended up with Mojave and all my current data migrated.

I didn't do much testing so far - don't want to repeat a lot of what might have already been done, but I noticed a couple of things already different from ElCapitan.

1. The installation of Mojave takes much longer than I remember from previous macOSs.
For one, the installation goes through several cycles, sometimes with a grey screen for a while and other times with a black screen. And during installtion, the installer assigned a random password to a non-admin account that one later needs to log into the regular account.
That was new to me.

2. When I checked Disk Utility in Mojave, Apple now no longer shows each external hard drive separately with the manufacturer name and model and then the partitions of each hard drive, but lumps all the partitions under "External"
Don't understand what the point of making that change was, but would that not cause a problem if someone gave a partition on each of several external hard drives that are connected the same name? How would one tell then apart so that one can erase the correct one for instance?
That type of change is what I'm looking for between ElCapitan and Mojave. Subtle but with the potential of creating a headache.
 
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1. Mojave took longer to install because in the process it completely changes the format of the boot drive from HFS+ to APFS. That change takes quite a while to accomplish. And it's mandatory in Mojave, so no avoiding the process.

2. In DU of Mojave, did you have "Show only Volumes" selected in the View options? If so, change that to Show All Devices. Be prepared for a bit of a shock, as the APFS system no longer refers to partitions, but to Containers and Volumes. The Volumes within a container are dynamically sized as the space is needed, up to the size of the Container. And you can add/delete a Volume on the fly, so to speak, without the gyrations of creating or deleting a partition in HFS+. You can, if you want, still use a partitioning scheme, but Mojave will reformat the boot partition to APFS. APFS is more efficient for SSDs, which is why the change.

Other than that, it's hard to say what kind of change will create a headache for you. If I hadn't seen your thread, it would never occur to me to tell you about "Save As...," for example.
 
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krs

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Thanks for the feedback

As to 1. - I had already erased and formatted the partition (I then installed Mojave on) to APFS before I started the installation, and yes, that erase and formatting took a lot longer than what I normally expect, but then the installation of Mojave on that already APFS formatted partition also took much longer than what I was used to from previous OSs
I just booted back into Mojave to check out your reply to item 2.
To start with, I can't select the Mojave start up disk in Preferences which I suppose makes sense as ElCapitan can't "see" the APFS partition.
So I shut down the Mac and started it again holding down the option key.
Normally the available boot drives show up in about 15 seconds (I actually just timed that).
This time it took just over a minute before the boot drives appeared on the monitor - I was just about to give up.
The strangely enough, only two of the HFS+ partitions showed plus the Mojave one.
When I select the Mojave partition, the cursor freezes for maybe 20 seconds, then the apple logo comes up but no progress bar.
The progress bar only starts several minutes later and I eventually boot into Mojave.

I assume that all is normal for Mojave, just not what I expect based on previous experience.
Next I select Disk Utility, and it takes a long time doing the search for the connected drives and volumes - much longer than on ElCapitan.
But you're right, "Show only Volumes" was selected. That's the way migration set it up - I just did a straight migration from the ElCapitan data.
I then tried Firefox and also launched Apple Mail. Both of those opened noticeably quicker than on ElCapitan.
That's where I'm right now.

As to potential "headaches" - I was just fishing on what other users may have noticed after they upgraded to Mojave.
I want to upgrade all the Macs in the family and I don't really know what applications or features everyone is using.
I'll try the most common ones, but other than me struggling with a clean install, everything looks great so far.
I suppose having both HFS+ and APFS on the same external drive may not help things either - it's not something that would normally happen.

BTW - Disk Utility "saw" all of the boot drives including the one that didn't come up when I started the Mac holding down the option key.
 
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My Macbook Pro is running Mojave Vs. 10.14.6
Processor 2.5 GHz Intel Core 17
Memory 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Graphics AMD Radeon R9 M370X 2 GB
500 GB harddrive with 207.12 GB available

It is running slow. Very slow. Spinning blue circle slow. I have cleaned up disk. I ran EtraCheck and fixed anything it said to do and it didn't make a difference. I have no programs loading at startup. I go and delete any loaded but unnecessary apps I'm not using. Nothing has helped. I'm happy it still works but opening Mohave is slow and processing is slow. Searching on Google is ridiculous. I'm ready to get a Touch Screen Microsoft Laptop. No one has been able to help me.

I don't know is anybody else is having this problem. My son said you are running out of disk. Wha? 207.33 GB available of 500.07 GB. I am at a loss here just spinning the blue wheel.
 

chscag

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Welcome to our forums.

Slowdowns like you describe sometimes can be attributed to a hard drive that is failing. Boot your MacBook Pro to Recovery (press command plus r at the boot chime). When in Recovery, select Utilities, Disk Utility, and check your Macintosh HD container. Let us know the results.

As you may already know, when you install Mojave it converts your hard drive or SSD to APFS. APFS is more efficient for SSDs than it is for spinning hard drives.
 
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The blue spinning circle is more associated with a slow internet connection. Is the slowness all the time, or just when you are on the Internet? Slow internet can be caused by many things.
 
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Next I select Disk Utility, and it takes a long time doing the search for the connected drives and volumes - much longer than on ElCapitan.
I need to revise that statement.
Now that I'm back on ElCapitan, it takes just as long for Disk Utility to bring up the connected drives and volumes, so this is not a Mojave issue as far as I can tell.
 
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@krs, what Mac is this on?
 
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Late 2012 Mini with a 2.5GHz i5, 16 GB RAM and a 500 GB spinner

PS: Just checked all drives, internal and external with DriveDX
All show good - no issues
 
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I need to revise that statement.
Now that I'm back on ElCapitan, it takes just as long for Disk Utility to bring up the connected drives and volumes, so this is not a Mojave issue as far as I can tell.
If the drives have a sleep function, when DU tags them to get the information it needs it can take a few seconds for each one to wake up and respond to DU. I have the same slow bring up because I have 11 external drives attached, plus two networked drives. DU is very slow to open with all that to poll.
 
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I have no idea if my external drives have a sleep function. I doubt it, at least not one that would cause a long delay because when I open any of the partitions that show on my desktop, that partition opens pretty much immediately.
Seems to me the "slowness" with Disk Utility started when I used one partition on one external to install Mojave with (of course) APFS

I only have two external drives connected right now:
a 1.5 TB 3.5" in a FW800 enclosure with two partitions, and
a 2.0 TB 2.5" 3.0 USB external with 4 partitions, one i a 500GB one with Mojave on it.

I just timed it - from the time DU shows "Loading Disks" until they actually show was 65 seconds
 
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When you have partitions, that's just more info to get. One disk with one partition will show up faster than one disk with multiple partitions.
 
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I just timed it - from the time DU shows "Loading Disks" until they actually show was 65 seconds
That is definitely not a good thing. You might try using something like Amphetamine (in the App Store) to keep the drives awake and test to see if that speeds up the start up times. If not, something funky is going on. Might be a failing external drive warning?
 
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..... Might be a failing external drive warning?
That's what I was concerned about - that's why I ran DriveDX, but it showed no issues.

Just timed DU again for various options, again time from start of DU searching until the window with the drives comes up:

1. Internal drive only; externals are still physically connected but not mounted - 15 seconds
2. Internal + 2.5" USB external with 4 partitions including one APFS - 34 seconds
3. Internal + 3.5 FW800 with two partitions - 15 seconds

All probably OK - just a bit odd since regular use of the Mini is quite snappy, both opening apps and connection to the net.

I tried another 2 TB USB 3.0 external with four partitions on it with ElCapitan backups - it along with the internal took 11 seconds to show in DU.
Seems to me that APFS is slowing things down, maybe because ElCapitan doesn't know what format that partition is or how to read, it takes a bit longer before ElCap decides to ignore it.
 
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Seems to me that APFS is slowing things down, maybe because ElCapitan doesn't know what format that partition is or how to read, it takes a bit longer before ElCap decides to ignore it.
Could very well be. DU probably goes through all the formats it knows before it rejects the drive/partition altogether.
 
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@krs, is that Mac, USB 2.0 or 3.0 connections?


Sent from my iPad using Mac-Forums
 
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Both the Mac and the 2.5" external drives are USB 3.0
Also show as USB 3.0 in the System Report.

I have transferred large files between the Mini and these externals, and the speed is much faster than USB 2.0, so I'm pretty sure the ports operate at the USB 3.0 speed.
 

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