2018 Mac mini Teardown: User-Upgradeable RAM, But Soldered Down CPU and Storage

[recoil80]

The soldered on SSD is a dealbreaker. Plain and simple. There goes another option to replace my old MBP...

I think it is better to have a soldered SSD than soldered RAM. You can always expand storage via an external drive, but you can't get more RAM.
Of course it would be great to being able to replace BOTH, but if I had to chose I'd pick RAM over SSD.
By the way, I think since they're using the T2 even for the disk we can't expect to be able to replace the storage in the future.

 

[Kabeyun]

Yup. That is you personal opinion which you are entitled to. If the cost for additional storage upgrade is a non issue to you, congrats.

If you’re trying to max out your Mini, you’re potentially spending upwards of $2000. That means were talking about roughly a 10%-15% premium to have Apple upgrade your SDD. If you don’t wanna spend that, fine, but let’s not be disingenuous and suggest that this premium represents the spending elite.

 

[guzhogi]

I miss Power Mac G4s & Blue & White G3s. Just pull down the side, and you have full access to everything.

 

[rednif]

If you don’t wanna spend that, fine, but let’s not be disingenuous and suggest that this premium represents the spending elite.

I personally think so, if you don't, thats fine for me.

 

[lilrush]

Why not just buy an iMac with dedicated graphics? With that Mac Mini setup you’d be spending at least $800 PLUS an eGPU PLUS a monitor, and it will take up way more physical space.

With an egpu you can keep the best card available. Right now thats probably a vega 64, which you wont find in an iMac (maybe in the imac pro which has still costs more versus mac mini)

 

[Veinticinco]

Someone needs to confiscate all those pesky soldering irons at Apple's manufacturing facilities.

Storage and memory need to be user-upgradable on every Mac.

 

[Lone Deranger]

Don't worry everyone, the next Mac-Mini update, in late 2022, will have user upgradable SSD but soldered down Ram and CPU. Entry model (still 128GB) will however start at $1699. R&D's costs money y'all.

 

[Sasparilla]

Nice to see that upgradeable RAM and relative ease of taking the board out of the machine to do the upgrade. Nice job Apple. (Bad job Apple on the soldered down SSD's though, at your prices they suck)

 

[emulajavi]

Why not making the bottom opening bigger (more squarish) to allow easy access to RAM??

Why not placing the RAM in another place of of the board more easily accessible??

Yo know how to do it!

Come on Apple! If you put replaceable RAM, don’t hide it!!

 

[seanbperiod]

Soldered 128GB is an absolute insult to their customers. How much does 128GB cost, like $20? Probably even much less at cost for Apple. There's no reason at all to not have the lowest tier start at 256GB, or even 512GB if they even pretended to care about their customers, instead of forcing people to upgrade to 256GB for an extra $200, which is even more insulting.

But they know many of us are locked into the system and won't switch to PC. This must be what an abusive relationship feels like.

 

[brendu]

Let's be real, for most users the ram is too hard to install. It can be done by a lot of tech people but not the average user.

This is the case in literally every desktop computer ever made. The overwhelming majority of end users never, ever open their computer to upgrade it. All that matters here is that apple provided us the ability. Its up to us to decide whether its worth doing but at least we have the choice.

 

[Sabelonada]

Really?? I can think of three reasons to replace the native drive:
1. Outgrow your storage
2. The native drive is lousy
3. Net cost of a 3rd party is less

As to 1, if 2TB isn’t enough, you should probably be looking at external storage options.
As to 2, I’m sure it isn’t.
As to 3, might well be, but deal breaker over maybe a couple of hundred bucks?

I also prefer swappable drive and have done so on my 2012 Mini (loving the OWC Mercury), but I don’t understand not buying a new Mini over this. Am I missing something?

4. Being unable to access MY data if anything on the board fails.

This is the biggest issue I have with the soldered on storage. In the unlikely event something other than the storage fails, my data is locked down. This in the end means I just don't store my data on the internal storage and rely on TB3 for access.

The downside of that for Apple is that I am going to treat the internal storage as more of a system/swap space and adjust my SSD needs accordingly. Though I could still see myself going to 1TB instead of 512GB for convenience.

 

[brendu]

Soldered 128GB is an absolute insult to their customers. How much does 128GB cost, like $20? Probably even much less at cost for Apple. There's no reason at all to not have the lowest tier start at 256GB, or even 512GB if they even pretended to care about their customers, instead of forcing people to upgrade to 256GB for an extra $200, which is even more insulting.

But they know many of us are locked into the system and won't switch to PC. This must be what an abusive relationship feels like.

I would feel the same way, its a lot like 16GB iphones back a few years ago, except this time the computer comes with 4 thunderbolt 3 ports. That pretty much eliminates any issue. Since this is a desktop, hooking up an external drive isn't really all that bad of a compromise.

 

[Rfar34687]

I had mine delivered yesterday, and I already had purchasd the 32gb memory upgrade, but couldn't perform it cause I had to order the special screwdrivers to take it apart, what I did noticed though is that the whole busy get pretty warm while in use, I mean this is my first Mac mini ever, so I don't know if the older ones get that hot.

 

[now i see it]

Soldered storage is more "evil" than soldered ram. Ram never wears out. SSDs eventually wear out. When that happens- toss the mini in the trash. In a way, this is the same hell as the iMac, just a different component. SSD instead of that screen.

 

[radiohead007]

Would it be possible with soldering iron and enough heat, extract the ssd and replace with a larger ssd? Does the T2 chip really track this? If I paid a professional to do this and it worked I would still cone out ahead money wise. I get warranty would be voided.

 

[Sabelonada]

The GPU downgrade and insane SSD upgrade prices imposed by Apple given it put a lousy soldered 128 GB drive in the base model is a sure way to make me skip this Mini after the 4-year wait.

Were you going to buy the i3 model? It's a fine processor for many, but it's really the only one with the 128GB which elicits such complaining.

For many use cases, the i3 128GB will probably be plenty. I am guessing Apple may see a great deal of demand for the $799 i3 with the i7 upgrade, boosted RAM, and an 10GB Ethernet port for clustering.

The i3/128GB probably isn't aimed at the consumer, that's the base i5 model.

 

[RedGala]

I hope this signifies a new shift in Apple hardware design

 

[Kabeyun]

4. Being unable to access MY data if anything on the board fails.

This is the biggest issue I have with the soldered on storage. In the unlikely event something other than the storage fails, my data is locked down. This in the end means I just don't store my data on the internal storage and rely on TB3 for access.

The downside of that for Apple is that I am going to treat the internal storage as more of a system/swap space and adjust my SSD needs accordingly. Though I could still see myself going to 1TB instead of 512GB for convenience.

Good point. Hadn’t thought of that, although most users probably aren’t thinking of it either, and such a scenario is really unlikely. I’ve offloaded much from the internal drive, although some apps play better with documents on the same drive (iPhoto and iMovie are two) and take up huge space with even moderate-sized libraries. For that reason, like you, my new mini will probably have a 1TB drive rather than the 512 GB drive I have currently.

 

[iReality85]

The soldered on SSD is a dealbreaker. Plain and simple. There goes another option to replace my old MBP...

I think it is better to have a soldered SSD than soldered RAM. You can always expand storage via an external drive, but you can't get more RAM.

Soldered 128GB is an absolute insult to their customers.

As a system builder, I'm really surprised they didn't go with M.2 for the mini.

 

[brendu]

I had mine delivered yesterday, and I already had purchasd the 32gb memory upgrade, but couldn't perform it cause I had to order the special screwdrivers to take it apart, what I did noticed though is that the whole busy get pretty warm while in use, I mean this is my first Mac mini ever, so I don't know if the older ones get that hot.

Which processor does yours have and what kind of workload did it get hot under? I am very curious about the thermals on these minis.

 

[CWallace]

The T2 chip might make it difficult or even impossible to replace the SSDs at an end-user level, anyway, which might be why only the iMac Pro has removable modules and they are soldered in on the laptops and the Mini (which have less physical volume).

 

[brendu]

Soldered storage is more "evil" than soldered ram. Ram never wears out. SSDs eventually wear out. When that happens- toss the mini in the trash. In a way, this is the same hell as the iMac, just a different component. SSD instead of that screen.

You could throw it in the trash... or boot from an external SSD and keep using it without issue since its a desktop and you can leave the drive hooked up all the time.

 

[zipgs]

It sounds like Apple did make a Mini with a socketed CPU and replaceable ssd, but instead released it with it all soldered down, I wonder if they were intending to release it that way and for some reason forced to switch it, or what the reason for that would be that they even made an upgradable model for internal use.

https://pikeralpha.wordpress.com/2018/11/08/mac-mini-2018/

 

[rednif]

As a system builder, I'm really surprised they didn't go with M.2 for the mini.

If they actually did that, the Mini would already stand here right before me.