High Sierra worth all the potential conflicts to upgrade?

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Topo
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High Sierra worth all the potential conflicts to upgrade?

Post by Topo »

Before I dive in, wanted to hear from those of you that use it and can let me know if it's of a significant benefit.
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Re: High Sierra worth all the potential conflicts to upgrade

Post by HCMarkus »

I am not yet dipping my toes in THAT water. Still looks murky from my vantage point on Sierra.
Last edited by HCMarkus on Fri Feb 16, 2018 8:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: High Sierra worth all the potential conflicts to upgrade

Post by dix »

I have High Sierra on my laptop. There's noting so great about it that I'd install it on my desktop music production Mac. More importantly, MOTU advises against upgrading to HS.
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Re: High Sierra worth all the potential conflicts to upgrade

Post by Topo »

Ah ha...exactly what I wanted to know. Sounds like there’s no reason to move from Yosemite.
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Re: High Sierra worth all the potential conflicts to upgrade

Post by mikehalloran »

Topo wrote:Ah ha...exactly what I wanted to know.
Except that you don’t know. Many threads on this. DP 9.51 is fully supported in High Sierra. Many of us find it better and disk activity smoother under APFS. There is an exception: There are unresolved conflicts with DP and UAD and VEP if you also use VSTs.
Topo wrote:Sounds like there’s no reason to move from Yosemite.
Wrong. DP 913 and above are optimized for El Capitan and above—among other things, you can run lower buffers. In addition, Yosemite is no longer supported by Apple and security updates are no longer being released.

Again, many recent threads on all of this.
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Re: High Sierra worth all the potential conflicts to upgrade

Post by dix »

Topo wrote:Ah ha...exactly what I wanted to know. Sounds like there’s no reason to move from Yosemite.
I didn't catch that you were on Yosemite. My work rig is El Capitan. There may be advantages to upgrading in that case.

As Mike points out, DP is fully compatible with HS Sierra, but MOTU told me to steer clear of it because of many potential third party issues. This is the first I've heard that disk activity is improved with HS. Ironically it's Apple's new APFS scheme that MOTU sited as the problem with third party plugins communicating with DP.
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Re: High Sierra worth all the potential conflicts to upgrade

Post by HCMarkus »

Sierra is solid. If you look around with some diligence, you can find the Sierra 12.6 Updater on an Apple webpage. Matter of fact, I think someone here at MOTUNation posted a link...

Edit: found it: viewtopic.php?f=26&t=64008&p=547322&hil ... bo#p547384

Also, Mr. Steele has posted has a direct download link i that thread.
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Re: High Sierra worth all the potential conflicts to upgrade

Post by dix »

Not a bad idea HC. This would at least bring my OS forward. Skipping more than a couple OSs can have it's own issues. Is there any functional advantage to Sierra over EC?
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Re: High Sierra worth all the potential conflicts to upgrade

Post by bayswater »

If it was all down to a stable production setup with DP, I'd still be running 8.07 on 10.6.8. It was the last configuration where I could work all day and never have to think about why odd things were happening, why something that worked every day for the past month stopped working.

But if you do anything else on a Mac, there are a lot of compromises between DAWS, plugins, and OS X versions, not to mention other applications. I run Logic, and some CAD software on the same Mac as DP. Older versions of these are non starters, and newer versions don't run on older OS X versions.

With this in mind, High Sierra is not perfect, but is better on balance for me than any OS X version since 10.6.8. It's the only one in many years with a .0 release that doesn't feel like a beta, even on my ancient iMac and aging MBP. It's also the first in many versions that doesn't completely suck at networking.

(Note: I stopped using UAD stuff a long time ago, so can't comment on that as an issue)
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Re: High Sierra worth all the potential conflicts to upgrade

Post by HCMarkus »

I, too, loved the way DP 8.07 worked, but I ran it under Mountain Lion. I moved directly to Sierra from ML, so can't offer any feedback re: Yosemite/El Cap vs Sierra. That said, I have enjoyed the shared calendar and other "cloud" stuff Sierra offers, and can't complain about DP9.51/Sierra operation. My experience with this combination (latest DP build) has been very comparable to DP8.07/ML; in other words: very stable and most excellent! The security updates are nice as well.

My move to Sierra was necessitated by my purchase of MODO Bass VI and an AMD RX460 GPU and 4k monitor. This GPU is supported natively under Sierra (no boot screen) with no driver installation required. Will the RX460 work under High Sierra? Probably, but I haven't really tried to find out as yet.

I am trepidatious about the new File System, APFS. Mike says it is working well, but with something this foundational, I want to be damn sure all the corner case issues have been resolved before I dive in. When making the move to a new OS, I like to clone my working boot drive, test the clone, then save it just in case. Will this even be possible once APFS formatting has been applied? Also, I have read about possible issues with Time Machine and APFS.

Luckily, my experiences to date have not required reversion to my old OS, but even a minor chance of a major problem gives me cold feet. I prefer to run my studio Mac as much like an appliance as possible. If it ain't broke... you know the saying! So, absent some currently unforeseen developments, I will probably be staying on Sierra for some time.
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Re: High Sierra worth all the potential conflicts to upgrade

Post by cuttime »

As an aside, I have another Mac with Sierra installed on it that I don't wish to upgrade, and EVERY day I get an update to HS notification. Other than turning off software updates that provide security info, has anyone else tamed this exceedingly annoying behavior? Yes, I Googled the problem, but have yet to find a suitable solution.
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Re: High Sierra worth all the potential conflicts to upgrade

Post by nk_e »

cuttime wrote:As an aside, I have another Mac with Sierra installed on it that I don't wish to upgrade, and EVERY day I get an update to HS notification. Other than turning off software updates that provide security info, has anyone else tamed this exceedingly annoying behavior? Yes, I Googled the problem, but have yet to find a suitable solution.
http://appleinsider.com/articles/18/02/ ... ifications

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High Sierra worth all the potential conflicts to upgrade?

Post by Rick Cornish »

+1 for Sierra. It’s been solid for me since I upgraded 9 months ago.

I’m standing by on HS until I see others are using it without issue.

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Re: High Sierra worth all the potential conflicts to upgrade

Post by James Steele »

Add me to the list of people content to remain on Sierra for the foreseeable future. I'm in no hurry.
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Re: High Sierra worth all the potential conflicts to upgrade

Post by apanacci »

Moi aussi ! Very stable for me here
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