While the yearly major macOS update system is free to install, it is still limited to Macs that Apple deems compatible, and every year a generation of Macs essentially becomes obsolete. This is despite the fact that Apple is eager to emphasize that macOS is a widely compatible operating system.As it happens, there are still people with close to ten-year-old Apple desktop computers still in use on a daily basis, likely performing a range of lighter tasks. Which Macs Don't Support High SierraFor some reason Apple doesn't want to allow these Macs to run its latest operating system, currently macOS 10.13 High Sierra. This leaves the following Macs on macOS 10.11 El Capitan:. MacBook Pro – late-2009 or earlier models. MacBook – late-2008 or earlier models.
MacBook Air – 2009 or earlier models. iMac – late-2008 or earlier models.
Mac Mini – 2009 or earlier models. Mac Pro – 2009 or earlier models.These machines are considered obsolete and vintage by Apple. The company vintage products as those that have not been manufactured for more than five years but less than seven years ago.
In many cases this turned out to be true, and with a few tweaks and amendments many of the “unsupported” machines have been brought back into the fold by a tool by dosdude1, called macOS Sierra Patcher. In this guide, we’ll walk you through how to use the tool to install macOS 10.12 Sierra on older Mac hardware, which claims not to.
Obsolete products are those discontinued more than seven years ago. How to Install macOS High Sierra on Unsupported MacsThough Apple doesn't support the above hardware officially, someone has thought about sharing the love for these older machines. A developer known as DOSDude1 has written a patch that works on Macs with the Penryn architecture. This article needs to have a date prominently displayed at the top since this is really time sensitive material.
As of 4/16/19, it looks like the Broadcom WiFi issue is solved but the track pad issue is not.I have a 2009 MacPro (4,1). This is not just a light duty machine. It’s still a powerhouse.
It is important to point this out, since it is kind of the point of this article. Improvements in real world performance are not as fast or necessary as they once were.
High end versus low end does matter. It probably helps that I have the 8-core, 2.9GHz version with 32GB RAM, an NVIDIA Titan X “Maxwell”, and 25TB worth of hard drives inside the machine.I have been running High Sierra in a VMWare virtual machine for a while now. Performance of this VM is not just okay. In fact, I have this High Sierra virtual machine as well as two others, running Snow Leopard and Ubuntu Linux constantly running. The MacPro, itself, is still on El Capitan but I want to upgrade because the latest NVIDIA drivers require High Sierra. The latest NVIDIA drivers, in turn, are needed to use the latest version of the MinerGate cryptocurrency mining software. In addition to constantly running three virtual machines and mining cryptocurrency, I also do software development and video editing.
Does this sound like a light duty machine?
With macOS Sierra, Apple has once again raised the bar on which Macs can install and run the newest version of the Mac OS. But as sometimes has happened in the past, there are workarounds that make it possible to install Sierra on some unsupported Macs.
A huge thank you to Collin Mistr for developing and sharing his macOS Sierra Patcher Tool for Unsupported Macs. Mistr is a member of our Low End Mac group on Facebook, and he’s been sharing this tool ever since he figured out how to install the first public beta of Sierra. Several members of our group have used the tool and shared their results.
Apple Requirements for macOS Sierra
Your Mac must have at least 2 GB of memory and 8.8 GB of available storage space. You must also be running Mac OS X 10.7 Lion or later. (For those still on OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, you can upgrade to OS X 10.11 El Capitan for free and then install macOS Sierra.)
All Macs introduced in the past six years are supported, as well as the consumer MacBooks and iMacs from late 2009, which are almost 7 years old. The official macOS Sierra installer will refuse to install on anything older.
Real Hardware Requirements for macOS Sierra
Again, your Mac needs at least 2 GB of RAM and 8 GB of available storage, and you’ll need a USB drive (thumb drive or hard drive) at least 8 GB in size. You will also need a Mac with an Intel Penryn Core 2 Duo or later CPU, since Sierra requires SSE4.1 – and older versions of the Core 2 Duo, such as Merom, and older Xeon chips (used in the Mac Pro) don’t have it.
mac OS Sierra Patcher Tool for Unsupported Macs supports the followining:
Where Apple only supports some Late 2009 and Mid 2010 Macs, Mistr’s patch supports all Early 2009 Macs, some Late 2008 Macs, and even some Early 2008 Macs. We have a full list of Macs that can unofficially install Sierra using using the Unsupported Sierra tag. We will also be updating these profiles with #unsupportedsierra as time permits.
You Can Install It, But…
That’s a lot more low-end support than Apple offers, so what’s the catch?
There has been an issue with some of the Apple AirPort hardware in older Macs, but other than that, it’s pretty much clear sailing. The AirPort support depends on which WiFi module your Mac uses. If it is not the Broadcaom BCM4321, you’re set.
Other issues include the trackpad in the 2009 MacBooks and loss of volume control on the Early 2008 iMac. Details below.
Unsupported Devices
Real World macOS Sierra RequirementsMemory
Sure, you can install and run macOS Sierra on a 2 GB Mac, but you’re not likely to be happy with system performance. You have a couple browsers running or several tabs in one browser, and that amount of memory will really hobble performance.
Heck, I find 3 GB on my 2.0 GHz 2007 Mac mini with OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard barely adequate. Then again, I often have 3-4 browsers running, many open tabs, and some additional apps.
My 2.0 GHz Late 2008 Aluminum MacBook has been running OS X 10.9 Mavericks and 10.11 El Capitan decently with 4 GB of memory, and that should be adequate for most users. Power users, however, will want at least 8 GB of memory.
A Fast Drive
Nothing will make your aging Mac seem fast like a Solid State Drive (SSD). Where hard drives are limited in how fast they can read data off a spinning platter, SSDs have no such limitation. Speed is almost completely limited by the speed of the SATA connection in your older Mac. Macs with 1.5 Mbps SATA will seem very fast with an SSD, those with 3.0 Mbps SATA will seem wicked fast, and those with 6.0 Mbps SATA will seem insanely fast.
SSDs have become very affordable over the past year. I have 256 GB and 480 GB SSDs in my Mac mini and MacBook respectively, and they made a world of difference.
If you need really high capacity or are on a very tight budget, look into newer 7200 rpm hard drives to replace your older hard drives. Newer drives tend to be faster and have larger data buffers, which boosts performance.
A third option if hybrid hard drives, which are part hard drive and part SSD. The drive itself manages which files are on the SSD and which remain on the hard drive platters, much like Apple’s Fusion Drive. I have tried hybrid, and while it was nicer than a straight hard drive, it doesn’t compare with a full fledged SSD. For some users in some applications, though, it might be a perfect mix of hard drive capacity and sometime SSD throughput.
In Closing
We Mac geeks have had a long history of hacking Mac OS X to run on unsupported hardware – starting with OS X 10.2. The biggest success was probably the unsupported installer hack for OS X 10.5 Leopard, allowing easy installation on Macs with G4 CPUs below the official 867 MHz threshold.
Collin Mistr’s patch is the same kind of thing for macOS Sierra. If your Mac is not supported by Apple but is by Mistr’s patch, give it a try. I think you’ll like it.
Keywords: #macossierra #unsupportedmacs #unsupportedsierra
Short link: https://goo.gl/InL5NS
searchword: unsupportedsierra
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