HELP!!! Update failed...

[Dreambird]

OK... I did a chat with customer service at OWC who says that drive will work for me and the life expectancy they give on their drives at OWC is 3 to 5 years. There's a 3yrs. limited warranty I need to check out. That life expectancy is pretty common, I've never had trouble getting about 5 years out of them. The one that I just figured out is pouched is over 6yrs. old... it predates my present MBP. So can't complain.

I'm thinking I'd like another smaller perhaps portable external to use a a bootable drive when I can get it anyway. Meantime I could partition a new 4TB to do Time Machine and maybe SuperDuper which I have. Perhaps I could install High Sierra from there when the time comes? I'm just going to try and download and stash the installer right now w/o hopefully installing the OS! Not ready... too much garbage here and I still don't know why that security update failed.

[Dreambird]

BTW what is the newest Photoshop? I suppose that will be a must have... 
I gather you pay hundreds per year now... no more just buy the app...  Brilliant!

So have cleared about 5GB of "stuff" off my internal drive, update some apps... next delete some old apps.

If ALL THAT won't let me install that security update... I really dunno... 
Of course I'll disconnect ALL peripherals including printer and remove all apps that load on startup until the thing is finished and working. I really don't know what else to do. Probably try the standalone installer.

[Sooz]

"Oh... BTW... Jim, howcome you didn't preach at Sooz here:
https://techsurvivors.net/forums/index.php?topic=28195.0
I noted she runs the same OS as me and people have been running into that problem with Safari too... it's not JUST her... I can't tell how new her iMac is... it runs the same amount of RAM as me, other than that no idea."

Hey, now, wait a minute, Dreambird! 

Jim knows I'm mostly clueless and I'm sensitive, too, and he's a gentleman and wouldn't preach at me, so stop that right now, Dreambird--no need to throw me under the bus!     
 

[Dreambird]

Sorry Sooz... no intention to throw you under the bus!  I'm afraid I just popped off when Jim kept insisting my internal 500GB Solid State drive would fail if it hadn't already soon. I don't think so... I've tracked it down to the need for a new external HD which is failing... that I can believe. I'm looking for another one. I've seen online others complaining about Safari doing weird things with the latest update and the Security Update completely failed on me... don't know why. Suggestion is maybe to try the standalone installer. I'm not doing ANYTHING until I have a new external HD to put Time Machine On. 

[Paddy]

DB, I stand by my recommendations on the Seagate portables. The OWC drives are full size (not portable), require their own power connection and while they may be a tad faster, this isn’t a major issue for a backup drive, IMHO. Further, though OWC give you a 3 year warranty vs the Seagate 2, you don’t know what brand drive is in that OWC enclosure. With the exchange and shipping, at OWC you’ll spend over $250 Cdn to get the same capacity in a physically larger drive that requires a power cable (with a bulky brick), vs $137 Cdn all in for the Seagate from Amazon. As I noted, I like OWC too, but can’t see any reason to prefer a full-size, substantially more expensive drive in this situation. Heck - you could buy a 1TB Seagate as well (for cloning - use the larger capacity 2TB or 4TB for Time Machine) and still come out way ahead.

[Dreambird]

You have absolutely valid points, Paddy... I'm not arguing... 
I may be just a little influenced by the memory of an absolutely horrid little LaCie portable I had... but in all fairness it was a long time ago.

The OWCs I'm looking at have a Toshiba drive in them...
I am also interested in the extra USB port... I only have 2 and lots to "stick" in them... A portable may be nice for a clone to take with me in case I can run it on my sister's computer... not sure about that but it's a thought.
I really would like the OWC... but don't need a 4TB... a 2TB as I have now would be good enough which would allow me to get perhaps a 1TB for a clone. I will most definitely look at the Seagates... I haven't decided just yet on anything and did want to check those out.

[Dreambird]

https://www.amazon.ca/Seagate-Backup-Portable-External-STDR1000101/dp/B00H4XH5IG/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

Is this one of the drives you referred to? It's less than on Newegg however it comes with a short little cable while Newegg comes with a longer one. Not really needed I don't think? Can always always find one around here hopefully. I didn't see any mention of the typical life span of these... they are moved around a lot and are not SSD.
The reviews are mostly good... one complaint about how it's formatted... so one could reformat it with Disk Utility to Mac only no?

[jchuzi]

BTW what is the newest Photoshop? I suppose that will be a must have...   
I gather you pay hundreds per year now... no more just buy the app...   Brilliant!

You have several options about Adobe apps. I subscribe to Photoshop CC, which includes Bridge, Camera Raw, and Lightroom. It costs $10.79 US per month. I don't like the fact that I can't buy it, but updates are free and it works really well. The improvements to selections make it worth my money, IMHO.

If you want more Adobe apps, you'll pay more.

[Paddy]

https://www.amazon.ca/Seagate-Backup-Portable-External-STDR1000101/dp/B00H4XH5IG/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

Is this one of the drives you referred to? It's less than on Newegg however it comes with a short little cable while Newegg comes with a longer one. Not really needed I don't think? Can always always find one around here hopefully. I didn't see any mention of the typical life span of these... they are moved around a lot and are not SSD.
The reviews are mostly good... one complaint about how it's formatted... so one could reformat it with Disk Utility to Mac only no?

Yup - that’s it. And the cables are from Seagate  - not the retailer and therefore not any longer at Newegg than at Amazon. They are short, but I’ve not found that a problem, and no, you can’t just use any other USB cable, because these have a what I think is a micro b end on the drive end, so unless you have another device that uses that type of cable you won’t be able to swap it out; they’re not as common as some of the other connectors. You could, of course, buy a longer one if you really needed it.

Almost no drives come formatted for Macs - almost all are formatted NSTF these days, and it takes all of a minute to reformat using Disk Utility. Not even a consideration, in my books (especially when anyone has the nerve to charge more for a “Mac-formatted” drive - which is akin to charging more for putting the milk in your coffee for you at the coffee shop instead of you doing it yourself!).

Anyway - I don’t work for Seagate or own their stock, but I probably should, since I own a number of them and have recommended them to numerous friends and family members, all of whom have been very happy with them.  

[Dreambird]

Paddy,
What do you think of this one... it is a desktop but it's Seagate... the 4TB is actually less expensive than the smaller one. With the Hub for Mac you get 2 extra USB 3 ports. They say you can use it between Mac and PC just by installing a corresponding driver... I'd put it to Disk Utility and reformat just for Mac. I could still get a 1TB portable for a clone to take along. Free shipping... Canada so no customs. I think even when I update to High Sierra I'd like an El Capitan clone for apps that might not work.

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B01JP2ACP6/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=AECIPMEQNVKO2&psc=1

Could have 2 iPad backups to... on the MBP and on the external.

[Sooz]

 

[Dreambird]

Sooz,
You're a good sport... and I have not been "preached" to by anyone anymore...  Thanks for your help with that...

I just saw this post online in a forum:

My Ipad 3 was rendered pretty much useless after 2 years of use with IOS 8. If its not improved with IOS 9 then Ive had it with Apple. Its taking planned obsolescence to a new level.

Uuuu-HUH! My iPad Air 2 is not even 2 years old since I got it... it gets reviews as being the best iPad and what does Apple do... discontinues it. It's being replaced by a similar size thing called just "iPad"...  I hadn't planned to upgrade soon anyway, but this really turns me off on the idea. No anti-glare, no lightning port and on. Costs less than iPad Air 2... and so? The only real option now is a huge 10"+ monster... iPad Pro... over-priced and too big... IMO anyway.

[Dreambird]

Paddy,
By any chance can you somehow connect a portable drive to an iPad?

[Paddy]

Paddy,
What do you think of this one... it is a desktop but it's Seagate... the 4TB is actually less expensive than the smaller one. With the Hub for Mac you get 2 extra USB 3 ports. They say you can use it between Mac and PC just by installing a corresponding driver... I'd put it to Disk Utility and reformat just for Mac. I could still get a 1TB portable for a clone to take along. Free shipping... Canada so no customs. I think even when I update to High Sierra I'd like an El Capitan clone for apps that might not work.

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B01JP2ACP6/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=AECIPMEQNVKO2&psc=1

Could have 2 iPad backups to... on the MBP and on the external.

The 4TB Seagate portables are $137 at Amazon and newegg.ca - just make sure you pick the black one! Silver, red and blue cost more at the moment (it varies - I got a blue one for only a couple of dollars more a few months ago), so they are cheaper than the full sized drive. Apparently the Seagate mobile software is being discontinued; I dislike using any proprietary backup software that requires that the software be installed (or forget retrieving your backups). For me, 2 USB ports wouldn’t be much of an inducement to get a full sized drive; it’s big, bulky, requires external power to operate and I could get a 4 port powered hub and the portable drive for the same money. (I have a 7 port Anker powered hub on my iMac, and still occasionally run out of ports!)

As to your other question- no, you can’t just connect an iPad to an external drive to do backups. There are some special wifi enabled drives out there to do backups, but it’s not like a Mac. See discussion here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7863917

[Dreambird]

Paddy,
Thanks for the link... I agree with one poster there... it IS kinda "stupid" of Apple not to think of that... I thought it would be the perfect application for a portable drive. Easy to take along and use. Oh well...

I appreciate your advice, and I'm still looking and thinking. It seems everything runs with USB and the MBP only has 2 so a hub of some sort is really needed. I don't use my MBP for anything professional so I'm happy if I've got enough so as not to have to keep swapping stuff around to get at a port! I like the Seagate portables and there is also a Western Digital that I really like. The price is good on both.
Right now however yet another problem has cropped up with my MBP... I've got crashes everywhere... several apps keep crashing and the mail pref panel keeps pestering me for my mail password to enable this account... it IS enabled and running. I don't know if it's more unhappy that it doesn't like the password I chose for myself or that it keeps hounding for a "path prefix"... I'm sorry but I have no clue what or where it wants. It just keeps hounding me every hour or so. I had a look in Console and there are crashes all over the place including all the kernel panics I got trying to install the security update. I don't understand all the stuff in there but one can see things seem to keep tripping over what appears to me to be a completely overloaded with old files... especially in preferences in the home directory. There are some of the com.apple type that when installing updates never overwrite a preference plist file they just create another and leave empty ones with a bunch of number and letters attached. There are files in there from way back in 2005 to now... the older ones haven't been accessed since the same year they were created.
I despise sloppy software... and Apple seems to be taking the cake! I don't know what else to do but weed through 400+ files and remove obvious crap. Then there's the Preference directory not in the home directory... it's cluttered too but not as bad. Even the System Library is full of junk, but one doesn't dare do much there.
I dunno... hopefully I can de-clutter well enough and then maybe run the 10.11.6 Combo Updater to freshen things up and replace anything I may have messed up. Honestly, it reminds me of the Hoarders show on A&E... I can run OnyX to get rid of all the caches and crash logs but it'll still happen, but at least one can repair permissions with that.
Duh! I'm going to go away and do something else for awhile... 

OH... I did boot into Recovery Mode and ran the Hardware Test. It all passed... all OK. The Test says that if your hardware is OK then it's software and I can see that. I have disconnected the external right now... later I'll reconnect it and run the test again.