Big Sur ???

[MartyByrde]

A good question why upgrade at all - well I am moving from Singapore to Malaysia. In Singapore I know where to get good Apple support (if anything happened in Malaysia I don't) this could mean a delay of upgrading for many months possibly a year or more which starts to bring it's own compatibility problems. I alway had the fall-back position of re-installing Catalina. I also have the option to use CCC as I have it installed on my wife's computer + ChronoSync which I have been evaluating as an alternative to Superduper. To be honest I didn't even think that Superduper would have a compatibility issue I don't remember reading about this before upgrading but then that's careless..

I am paranoid about data back up (off-site, cloud many SSD's) way beyond normal behaviour and as the article you mention above says: "Please keep in mind, however, that your CCC backup does not have to be bootable for you to be able to restore data from it"

It's sad we have to endure OS upgrade issues but really I have endured a lot worse than the Catalina to Big Sur upgrade.

That's real good that you are taking backups, and you have a fall back plan. But regarding SuperDuper! (and in the past, also Carbon Copy Cloner), it's always been the case in the past that an upgrade was not immediately available when a new Mac OS was released. And if you read my post above, #10, about the 3 things to be aware of/considered, waiting to upgrade is the wise thing to do.

Regarding applications not yet compatible, any such software that needs to operate at the disk/software level would logically fall into that category. Myself, 2 such programs, Onyx, and Tech Tool Pro, are pristine examples. Both of them (along with SuperDuper!) don't have upgrades typically available right away. And I for one like that, as it takes a couple of the releases of the new OS to really get stabilized.

I truly feel the one thing that folks need to consider is whether or not, as I stated above, there is anything "earth shattering" in the new OS that one must have. Myself i have not seen any such thing for the past 6 or 7 versions of the Mac OS, and certainly not for Big Sur.

This year, things were even more complicated. First off, this is the latest I've seen a Mac OS being initially released. Secondly, there needs to be 2 versions of Big Sur, one for Intel-based Macs, and the other for M1-based machines. Third, within a week after the initial non-beta release arrived (V11.0 for M1-based machines, and V11.0.1 for Intel-based Macs), a beta was release for V11.1 of the OS for both. That's not a stable situation, in my book.

Finally, when I finally make the move from Catalina (which is a mature, rock solid OS) to Big Sur, I actually will do a clean, fresh installation (the process I go through is described in post #13 above). I suspect that will be in January, at the earliest, as that is when I am expecting a version of Tech Tool Pro compatible with Big Sur will be available. Of course, that assumes that my other 3 critical applications (Thunderbird, Onyx, and of course SuperDuper!) have compatible versions available. Right now, if Thunderbird and Onyx had compatible versions, I would download and install V11.1 of Big Sur (should arrive real soon) on a partition on one of my external SSDs and test it. But again, I am no real rush. Catalina is just fine, thank you very much.

 

[gelphyn]

Upgrading on a regular, and seemingly increasing frequency, is all part of the business plan and not many are more successful in getting money from your pocket than Apple.
Unfortunately 'escaping' from their 'eco system' is not easy unless you have VERY deep pockets stuffed with cash, especially factoring in other Devices like iPad/iPhone/Apple Watch.
My entry into the world of Mac started in early 2008, with the then latest Mac Pro 3.1, that when ordered cost over £2,000.00.
When delivered the cost had REDUCED to nearer £1,800.00. Generous Apple? Absolutely not, just part of the plan to get rid of stocks to make room for the next updated versions of the Mac Pro 4.1 only a year later. Prices soared with the Mac Pro 5.1 just another year later. The 5.1 was further updated in 2012 and the 6.1 was released in 2013. There was a long gap in Mac Pro upgrades until the 7.1 in 2019.

With an increased interest in Graphics by 2013 I needed to upgrade beyond adding RAM and HDDs/SSDs + an External 8 Drive Tower, prices had spiralled well above my ceiling and I eventually opted for a secondhand Mac Pro 2010 5.1fully tricked out with an Nvidia Titan X and 128GB Ram with access to all my existing Drives and running HighSierra on NVMe Card. Generated Data is stored on a separate larger NVMe Card, both of these housed within the 5.1.
Original Photos are stored on an Internal 1TB SSD along with a Frequently CCC Clone of the MacOS on a separate SSD.

With Photos also copied to iCloud, + Backed Up to the Drive Tower you may realise I have no intention of losing irreplaceable Data.
eMail is converted to PDF and stored along with other Documents and Drawing Images in many Formats with BackUps in the Drive Tower.

Even with all this HighSierra is falling apart Pages and Numbers cannot be updated and prior experience with MS Office, on subscription, was such that although dully Paid For could not be Opened and was eventually Refunded.
With Security Updates to HighSierra, still deemed essential, it is necessary to manually update Nvidia Drivers that are sometimes not available for many days after these events. Just one of the problems running modified Apple Hardware.
With a lot of Software moving to Subscription Plans and demanding later Operating Systems, I felt the need for an alternative Mac to handle the day to day jobs and be compatible with my existing Devices.

I have ordered the new MacBook Pro 13" M1 with 1TB Storage and 16GB RAM. Additionally an External Crucial NVMe 2TB Drive has been ordered that when Partitioned will contain Photos and other Data. I anticipate purchasing a further External Drive as a BackUp for Photos and Data. I will view the output on my existing Display.
This will give me a second means to access the Internet on a decent sized screen and will make my ageing UPS less important.
Hopefully, if this pans out as planned, an upgrade to M1 power + [say] 64GB will be possible in a couple of years?