Upgrading from El Capitan to Mojave

[home_studio]

Hi, since 2019.5 in not supported with 10.11, I should upgrade to 10.14.
I do have Time Machine backuping to an external sata HD (via TB).
Are there any "hazards" to be concerned about when upgrading?
Thanks.

[Darryl Ramm]

Hazards? Yes, lots of them. That you mess stuff up and end up with an unworkable computer. That you mess stuff up and lose some or all of your data. That you do the wrong type of upgrade and end up with a messed up system (insitu macOS updates can work, but are risker). Or that you upgrade, even doing everything well and something does not work, and then you need to go back... and the plan to do that is??

Instead of doing an insitu upgrade, I would take this opportunity to do a new full clean install of macOS Mojave. Then install just 2019.5 and the ILM and test that works before doing anything else, then move over user documents and sessions from the old drive, then install (from new up to date installers) any third party plugins and other apps as you need. Testing things as you go.

I would likely do that install on a new test disk or partition, so that I can boot back to my working system at any time. Once everything is working OK I would clone the new drive over the old drive, or maybe you have an old slow boot drive and can install the new drive you purchased there.

UPDATE: Oh I just saw you have a 2013 Mac Pro. How large is the internal drive and how much free space is it showing now? One option may be to add a test partition there.

You download the Mojave installer as usual from the Mac App Store to your current boot drive but when you run it you do **NOT** select the option to update the existing system. You select the options to do a new install and then tell it to install that on the empty drive or partition. You should be able to find instructions online.

And do *not* use the Mac Systems Migration (aka mangler) utility to move applications or drivers to the new system. Install everything from scratch.

BTW Time Machine is probably not the best choice for backing up boot drives. Carbon Copy Cloner is usually a much better choice. And I hope you have more than backups to just one drive, and some of those backups are stored offsite.

[Southsidemusic]

I really wonder how many home setup guys has a system backup offsite!? I dont know a single home setup who has offsite backup as thats overkill if anything...

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by Southsidemusic

I really wonder how many home setup guys has a system backup offsite!? I dont know a single home setup who has offsite backup as thats overkill if anything...

Oh stop yer whining.

Well to be clear it's not so much the system backup, but user documents and sessions you want offsite.

Many home users I know have documents backed up to the cloud.

Personally I have document on cloud (multiple providers) and offsite full boot images and archive backups.

[Southsidemusic]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

Oh stop yer whining.

Well to be clear it's not so much the system backup, but user documents and sessions you want offsite.

Many home users I know have documents backed up to the cloud.

Personally I have document on cloud (multiple providers) and offsite full boot images and archive backups.

Yes so do we but we are a studio with a lot on the line, however I get what you mean and why it is a good thing

[home_studio]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

Hazards? Yes, lots of them.

Oh my.. getting worried here :)
I'll have to read some more about it.
All my working data is on external drives + 2 backups.
I need to make a list of all my plugs and applications and have all the installers on hand.
Only then I'll make a test partition and just after, if all works fine I thing it will be a good idea to to have a clean installation of 10.14.
Sounds OK?
Thanks

[Darryl Ramm]

Being a little worried is good.

So yes if you have enough space on your fast internal SSD you can use Disk Utility to shrink the current boot partition, then create a new partition in the free space, then install a full new macOS onto that new partition (from the Mojave installer running from the existing boot partition (you do *not* need to make a bootable USB stick installer etc. that many instructions online talk about... that is only needed if you do not have a current runnable OS).

Be careful, it’s easy to accidentally confuse what partition is what, name the new partition so that is really clear.

If you are using time machine now I would consider getting Carbon Copy Cloner and making a bootable clone of your system drive before doing anything.and once you have made it, boot directly from it (hold down option as the Mac is powering on and select that drive), and make sure everything works OK before proceeding.

The little external drive I am using for things like that now is the Samsung T5, it’s a USB 3.1 Gen 2 SATA SSD, which will run as USB 3 on your trash can. Still much faster than most HDD, pretty indestructible and handy for quick bootable backups and testing. Archiving stuff I do to a HDD (not SSD). Actually my 2TB T5 drives have multiple recovery partitions on them, different macOS installers, etc. super handy critters.

You mention external session drives. Just to be clear with the super-fast Mac Pro internal SSD you can run your sessions from there (and use external drives to back up/archive them). May be something to consider in future.

[Darryl Ramm]

Oh one thing worth being aware of is you will end up with the Mojave boot partition using the new APFS filesystem. Regardless of what partition you create it will get converted to APFS by the Mojave installer. It is much better all around than HFS+ currently being used on your computer. A running Mojave system can read APFS and all your current disks but if you boot back into El Crapitain it will not be able to read what is on the Mojave APFS boot partition, not be able to copy stuff there (so you copy stuff like user files/accounts from your old boot drive to the new one while running Mojave). Should not be be a problem, I just wanted you to be aware of it.

[mspin]

I have been working in mojave for some time with basically no issues. I have downloaded and installed 2019.5 and everything is stable. It seems in my experience just because the PT version is not qualified does not mean there will be a disaster if one downloads and works in it. These versions of PT are basically pretty much there in terms of working. There can always potentially be bugs even in qualified versions so making sure you have backup is a wise idea. Moving forward with each release pushes the boundaries and has allowed me to enjoy the advances even though many are beyond my skill set. Built and designed by man, fixed by man if broken. Just enjoy wisely.

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by mspin

It seems in my experience just because the PT version is not qualified does not mean there will be a disaster if one downloads and works in it.

Sure.. But even a blind grandpa can see that 2019.5 is made for Mojave and works so much more stable