Tips for upgrading OS on studio computer

I've been running a maxed out late 2012 Mac Mini as my main studio computer for a handful of years now.

With this setup I'm running Pro Tools 12 through some outboard gear on the way in while using mainly waves plugins along with SD3 and other miscellaneous stuff I've picked up along the way. This rig is currently frozen, or as I'd like to say 'dialed in' at OS 10.9.5 (Mavericks), and everything works well for me.

However, I am starting to run into some annoying compatibility issues running an outdated OS, not necessarily with what I'm running in PT, but with other apps, functionalities, etc.

I'm hesitant to upgrade OS for a number of reasons:

1. The Mac Mini is quite outdated and though its maxed out, I'm afraid of general sluggish performance through a new OS
2. A lot of plugins I use were gifted to me many years ago and I do not have access to any of the licensing information for them. Not sure how upgrading the OS will affect this.
3. I'm quite used to this rig and am not sure what kind of adjustments I'm going to have to make to my workflow, if any.

Anyone been in a similar scenario? I'd love to get some advice on how to move forward here. Thanks!
 
Monterey won't run on your Mac, so it's a moot point :). 2014 is the oldest macmini that is supported.

A new M1 macmini will be a breath of fresh air. Not sure what you mean by "gifted", but you'll be better off buying new versions of those plugins anyway.
 
Catalina is the latest OS that will run on that Mac Mini. If your HD is big enough, you can partition it, install Catalina on the new partition & then use Migration Assistant to copy everything over & see how things work.
 
Monterey won't run on your Mac, so it's a moot point :). 2014 is the oldest macmini that is supported.

A new M1 macmini will be a breath of fresh air. Not sure what you mean by "gifted", but you'll be better off buying new versions of those plugins anyway.

Gifted as in given to me as a gift by an old friend of mine. I literally brought my computer to his house one day and he literally uninstalled a whole suite of waves plugins from his computer and put them onto mine.

I actually recently bought an M1 Mac Mini, but I'm using that for video editing. I've heard that a lot of plugins and other software isn't optimized for the M1 processors so I'm holding off on upgrading the studio machine until that gets sorted out.
 
Catalina is the latest OS that will run on that Mac Mini. If your HD is big enough, you can partition it, install Catalina on the new partition & then use Migration Assistant to copy everything over & see how things work.
Could I get away with just backing the whole machine up to an external drive and then just time machining back to how it was before if the OS upgrade makes everything go sideways?
 
Don't worry about plugins not being native yet. Using an M1 MacMini under Rosetta will run rings around your 2012 MacMini.
 
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Could I get away with just backing the whole machine up to an external drive and then just time machining back to how it was before if the OS upgrade makes everything go sideways?
I have always run the dual partition approach to test out a new OS but if you have a good external backup drive to use, that will work too. For me, it's a little less scary since I don't have to wipe the drive & reinstall everything if it doesn't work. With dual partition, all I have to do is switch the startup drive & restart & I am right back where I was if the new OS doesn't work out.
 
Don't worry about plugins not being native yet. Using an M1 MacMini under Rosetta will run rings around your 2012 MacMini.
I am looking at upgrading to an M1 mini.
I have read that using Rosetta drastically reduces performance (negates the CPU bump) significantly.
Is this not true?
 
I am looking at upgrading to an M1 mini.
I have read that using Rosetta drastically reduces performance (negates the CPU bump) significantly.
Is this not true?
Negates? I would say no. Let me put it this way: Even running under Rosetta, my M1 macmini outperforms my 6 core 3.6 GHz MacPro. At $899 for the 16GB version (compared to $3000 I paid for the MacPro) it's almost a no-brainer. As an added bonus, the M1 is dead silent in the studio.
 
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