How to upgrade Mac OS to Yosemite (not El Capitan)

[Renaissance Man]

Wanting to upgrade my early 2008 Mac Pro OS from Snow Leopard to Yosemite.
Where can I purchase the discs? Apple seems to only offer El Capitan.

[stubbsonic]

I'm curious if it is even available on disc. At any rate, you can probably find a download link, but Apple® will not be of any help. You'll get some help from folks here.

It is pretty weird and surreal that you can't find a download link for this OS® on the Apple® site or App Store® It's a sign of the times, I guess. Google searches bring up links from 3rd parties.

Me: "Um. Hi Apple, I'm just now ready to update to Yosemite."

Apple: "Yes, well, that ship has sailed. The OS is currently El Capitan®."

Me: "But that OS is going to break a few apps I use."

Apple: "Ah. Perhaps you are a 'power-user'. In that case, you'll figure it out. Have a great day!"

[mikehalloran]

It's free but, if you never downloaded it when available, you can't now as you've found out.

You can get it from anyone who has installed it from the App Store. That person can download it, archive (zip) it, load it onto a thumb or SDHC drive, burn it to a DVD-DL, upload it to your FTP server or DropBox account it you you have one capable of handling a 6Gig upload.

I can upload it to your FTP or DropBox account. PM me with the URL user name and password you want me to use. If you can't get it any other way, I can mail you a DVD-DL, SDHC or USB drive for a few bucks to cover my time and expense.

Zipping the file first is important if you are going to sneakernet or copy from another Mac to yours. You may not be able to use the installer otherwise due to ownership and permission issues. Although I know how to prepare a thumb drive so that the installer will open on any Mac, zipping the file first with the Archive utility makes that a non-issue. Right-click on the installer and select Archive to do this.

When you get the file, copy to your desktop, run it from there and trash the installer when done. This will be a lot faster than running it from media.

[mikehalloran]

If you have an Apple Store near, I'd take an 8G or larger USB drive to them and see if they will zip and copy the 10.10.5 installer for you. Couldn't hurt to ask.

There is a way to make a boot DVD or USB drive using Terminal but it's not necessary for most people.

[Renaissance Man]

No luck on Yosemite so I developed a new strategy.
Added a 250 GB SSD with two partitions to my early 2008 Mac Pro. (Unfortunately the Mac is limited to 3Gbs).
On the first partition I'm loading Snow Leopard with DP9, on the second partition El Capitan with DP9. I'll see how many of my third party plugs I can get to work with both combinations.
In the mean time I'm maintaining the original boot drive so my studio won't be crippled.
It will be interesting to compare the SSD to my standard drive- just to see what the actual gains are from the SSD.

[FutureLegends]

Unless you have a specific plug-in that doesn't work in El Capitan I see no reason to go for Yosemite instead of El Cap. All plug-ins that work in Yosemite will also work in El Cap (with a few exceptions, but that has for the most part been fixed now as well).

[mikehalloran]

(Unfortunately the Mac is limited to 3Gbs).

Well... not really.

$29 plus shipping gets you 6G eSATA card:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sonnet%2 ... ATA6PROE2/

Use with an eSATA dock. There are many that are a lot less expensive than this one.
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/VU3ESFW8/

[Renaissance Man]

UPDATE:
Am successfully running 64 bit with El Capitan and all of the software and plugs listed in my signature. No way to compare whether the machine is running better since virtually all of the software has been upgraded in order to obtain 64bit operation. However, the system is stable and operating well.
Also using a 3G SSD for the boot drive which I wiped and reformatted with only one partition. The machine boots in about half the time as it used to with the old 7200rpm drive.
Thanks for all the helpful information!

[mikehalloran]

Thanks for letting us know.

Although the 6G option is still available through eSATA, it will be a minor bump compared to the one you have already experienced.