I have a Mac mini with Sierra...PT10 is not working

[Vains]

I keep getting a prompt that says it's only compatible with OS X 10 and higher. Is there anything I can do?

[jeffro]

Pro Tools 10 was qualified with Mac OS X 10.6 - 10.8.5 and is not supported on Sierra. It was released prior to the existence of Yosemite (10.10) so the OS check only sees the first digit after the . so 10.12 is being read as 10.1.

You can install an older OS (on another partition if needed) to run PT10, or upgrade Pro Tools for the newer OS.

[Vains]

Thanks, I’ll try installing it on another partition when I get back home.

[jeffro]

I've got a MacBook with 4 partitions in case I need to test an older version of software, so that's doable. Lots of articles out there if you need help setting that up. You still might want to check out what's been added in PT along the way to see if it makes sense to upgrade at some point.

[musicman691]

Something to keep in mind with multiple boot partitions is that each partition can, depending on what's installed on each, take anywheres from 100 GB to 150 GB. You also don't want to set your partition size in OSX Disk Utility to anything less than 250 GB - take it from someone who's been down that road. I mention this because while desktop Macs can have fairly large system drives a Mac Mini may not be all that large unless it was either ordered with a larger than stock drive or has the drive has been changed after purchase.

Another problem is and this gets a little sticky is what exact Mini is being talked about? The Mini I use for internet & Photoshop came with OSX 10.6.8; maybe the poster will get lucky and can install OSX 10.8.5 or OSX 10.9.5 on it in a second partition. Partitions are easy to add - all done in OSX Disk Utility. A lot depends on what exact OSX came on the model Mini in question when it was first introduced. I know MIni's went through a few iterations by Apple.

[Ben Jenssen]

Originally Posted by musicman691

Something to keep in mind with multiple boot partitions is that each partition can, depending on what's installed on each, take anywheres from 100 GB to 150 GB.

???
Where do you get the numbers from?
Of course partitions can be of almost any size.

And if you are talking about a fresh install of OS and PT, the space needed can be as small as 20 GB or even less, depending on what's installed.

Originally Posted by musicman691

You also don't want to set your partition size in OSX Disk Utility to anything less than 250 GB - take it from someone who's been down that road.

Makes no sense.
I have a 128 GB SSD split in two, with OSX 10.6.8, PT10 and a lot of audio software on one partition, and Sierra plus a lot of photo and graphics software on the other. About half is free space on each.
(I actually had it split into three bootable partitions for six months last year. No problems at all.)

My recovery partition, on a separate HDD, is 10 GB.

Main thing is to always have plenty of free space.

I do use symlinks, aliases, for a couple of things, like the gigantic iTunes folder that has my music and movies.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Ben Jenssen

???
Where do you get the numbers from?
Of course partitions can be of almost any size.

And if you are talking about a fresh install of OS and PT, the space needed can be as small as 20 GB or even less, depending on what's installed.


Makes no sense.
I have a 128 GB SSD split in two, with OSX 10.6.8, PT10 and a lot of audio software on one partition, and Sierra plus a lot of photo and graphics software on the other. About half is free space on each.
(I actually had it split into three bootable partitions for six months last year. No problems at all.)

My recovery partition, on a separate HDD, is 10 GB.

Main thing is to always have plenty of free space.

I do use symlinks, aliases, for a couple of things, like the gigantic iTunes folder that has my music and movies.

My numbers on size are based on personal experience. You missed the comment I made about the size depending on what's installed - I'm not talking about a barebones install but something for practical usage. And like I said you don't want to starve a partition for size either. I would NEVER split a drive as small as yours into separate partitions.

Of course a partition can be any size but again - I'm speaking from personal experience. Recovery partition size doesn't mean anything here.

You can store content anywhere - it's the programs that need to be installed on the system drive/boot partition.

[Sardi]

Gotta agree with Ben here.

I’ve had multiple partitions that were 60Gb running various versions of Mac OS with no issues at all. These were working systems running different versions of PT.

Not sure what issues you had, but I’ve not experienced anything over the many years of doing this. Works exactly as it should. I mean heck, my MBA only has a 128Gb SSD fitted and I’ve done stuff on that like running it down to 3Gb free and it still didn’t miss a beat. Not recommending that btw, just an example.

Also, glad you finally came round to the OS the machine shipped with when released rather than when bought.

Originally Posted by musicman691

A lot depends on what exact OSX came on the model Mini in question when it was first introduced.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Dopamine]

Originally Posted by musicman691

My numbers on size are based on personal experience. You missed the comment I made about the size depending on what's installed - I'm not talking about a barebones install but something for practical usage. .

I completely agree, 250 GB gives you room to breath and grow. That's what I recommend as well as far as a minimum for a usable partition in a pro environment.

I also have a Mac mini. Currently I have PT 10 on 10.8.5 and PT 12.7 on Sierra.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Dopamine

I completely agree, 250 GB gives you room to breath and grow. That's what I recommend as well as far as a minimum for a usable partition in a pro environment.

I also have a Mac mini. Currently I have PT 10 on 10.8.5 and PT 12.7 on Sierra.

I learned a long time ago on a Windows system to NOT starve a hard drive for space. Besides drives are inexpensive these days so why not go for something with adequate space? Things are never static and like money you can never have too much drive space. I'd rather have more space than I need than to have not enough space. There are any number of programs that during install require more space than they end up using in the end.

My current system (OSX 10.10.5) with PT, DP and all plugins save for sample space (separate drive) is about 150 gig. On my old iMac with three boot partitions (OSX 10.8.5, OSX 10.9.5 and OSX 10.10.5) each of those were in the neighborhood 125 gig. My internet/Photoshop machine (OSX 10.6.8) with it's programs between the System & Library folders alone is almost 15 gig with somewheres north of 20 gig all told excluding what's in my user folder. Include that and it's well north of 100 gig.

So given that, small system drives like a 128 gig drive won't have much if any room to grow or even work efficiently. You really don't want to fill a drive to more than 75 to 80% capacity.