How to have a trouble free upgrade to Snow Leopard

Question

At a long time Mac devotee, I used to be the first in line for upgrades. Over the past few years though, I have decided to wait a couple of months to see what happens. I have had too many occasions when I pulled my hair out trying to get printers, scanners and other odd peripherals to work, waiting for new drivers, or even worse, not work at all.
So I watched and waited. Learned that Apple Talk was no more. Experimented with IP printing on my 10.5 system and found out that it worked. Bought Snow Leopard, and GUID formatted an external drive with 10.6 - booted it, and used it to play with my software to see what would work and what wouldn't. (everything, in my case, worked).
I heard about all the speed increases, and had experienced a gradual slow down in my own MacBook Pro Intel Core 2 Duo - 2.2 ghz, 4gb of ram, and a self updated 300 gb hard drive.
I decided to do a totally clean intall on a new 500gb 7,200 rpm drive ($129 from OWC)
Backed up everything twice - pics and music three times.
Installed the drive - takes about 15 to 30 minutes - and installed SL. Put the old SATA into an external box.
It boots in about 38 seconds - amazing for me - and even Spotlight - which seemed to drag everything whilst it was indexing - doesn't drag anymore.
Even Office Reminders (part of Entourage/Office) which seemed to slow down everything else loading behaves and loads quickly.
I did compact the Entourage database prior to upgrading but that was about the only modification to my current data/files.
The old drive can be booted if necessary to get your serial numbers etc from downloaded software.
I NEVER use Migration Assistant because it's all or nothing in each category and you never know if you are bringing back the rubbish that slowed you down before.
It takes longer, and requires more preparation, but there is no question in my mind that a TOTAL clean intall is the best way to go.
Hope this helps - I don't mean to be arrogant or a "know-it-all" (which I'm not) - I am just passing on my 26 years experience from system 1 onwards.

Answer 1

Julian Solomons wrote:
Just trying to be helpful VK - how do I unmark it as a question? (I believe this is a question!)
lol, yes, that's a question! you can not unmark it as a question now. don't worry too much about that. but in the future when you are making a new thread you get an option to mark your post as a question (that's the default) or not. after you first post it you have a limited time to unmark it as a question by choosing the appropriate button at the top of the thread. but after a while it's locked in and you can not change it. see the help and Terms of use link on the right for details
http://discussions.apple.com/help.jspa