If they aren't and your Mac later becomes unresponsive, you may need to open a support ticket to have the settings changed. Once an upgrade is complete, you should verify these settings are still configured correctly before allowing your hosted Mac to sit un-used (it might shut-off on it's own). You might also use Schedule to have your hosted Mac power-on at a specific time every day if it's accidentally shut-off. We're referring to Computer Sleep and Display Sleep which should both always be set to 'Never' and Start up automatically after a power failure which should always be checked. System SettingsĬritical system settings can be reset during an upgrade. We don't recommend you leave the upgrade running and walk away.

You can't rush it so just relax and find something else to work on while it runs in the background. Patience? An operating system upgrade can typically take 30-60 minutes. It is likely still working in the background. If your connection does drop, don't freak out. It's not often we see customers with issues but usually it's because they're using a 3rd party VNC application that doesn't want to play nice with macOS during an upgrade. We recommend customers use Screen Sharing to start the operating system upgrade and leave it open if possible. Always consider whether your most recent backup is valid before updating any software or operating system on a production machine.

With the 3-2-1 method, you can regularly send a copy of the Time Machine backup from the hosted Mac to another location like your home or work. You can also colocate your own USB or Thunderbolt-powered 2.5' external drive at no cost. These are very popular among our customers and allow us to quickly help them return to an unbroken or clean state after software errors. Follow the 3-2-1 method if possible.Īt MacStadium - if you don't already - we recommend you take advantage of external bus-powered storage like a 1, 2, or 4TB external usb drive for regular Apple Time Machine backups of your hosted Mac.

On every single list like this one, backup is always at the top. There are a few best practices you can follow to enjoy the best OS upgrade experience on your hosted Mac at MacStadium. Many MacStadium customers rely on a hosted Mac in one of our three data centers to complete important tasks on a day-to-day basis for personal or business reasons. No-one wants to lose access to that data or find it missing entirely due to a botched operating system upgrade. Whether it's a personal or work computer, important data is stored on it. With any operating system upgrade, you have to be careful. While there are many brave souls who updated their personal, work, or hosted Mac computers immediately, we're sure many of you were waiting for the all clear. Apple released macOS 10.12 Sierra recently.

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