Mac Studio Teardown Indicates That SSD Storage May Be Upgradeable

[3gfisch]

The SoC is the die, not the package including RAM. The package including RAM is an MCM, not a SoC.

That said, people are often very loose in using the proper terminology.

Thanks for the info. Yes i think even apple uses mostly SoC as marketing name but the iPhone package is also including RAM stacked on top so more a SiP to be concert..? “Some view SiP as a vertical MCM, in contrast to horizontal MCMs for high performance computers of the previous era.“
but any way i meant the whole package which could be the smallest consumer usable part..

 

[Digitalguy]

You do realize that if NORMAL people want more storage they attach it via USB/TB or stick in an SD card, right?
The only thing you NEED that internal SSD for is booting (and even that is somewhat technical; you CAN boot from an external drive, it's just the very first stage needs to handshake with the internal SSD).

You do also realize that eBay is a thing, and if Student has become Engineer in three years, they can sell on eBay and upgrade, right? Macs do an astonishingly good job of holding their value over time.


So basically all your outrage is focussed on the trivially rare event of "SSD dies completely, after warranty period, but before I want to replace the Mac". Yes, the two people in the world for whom this will *ever* happen feel your outrage.

Not just for booting... My Onedrive for Business account (5TB with 4.3 full) will not install on external drives, so I would need to get the 8TB version if I want it on my Mac (which is like a $2400 upgrade). On my Windows desktop it cost me $135 a couple of years ago to get a 6TB HHD. And on my Windows laptop I have a second SSD slot free. This is one of the reasons why I cannot move my workflow to MacOS (without spending a fortune)

 

[jjcs]

That’s probably the wrong answer for 99% of people.

The correct answer is iCloud and offline. Note the “and”.

I bet you don’t test your backups properly ie restore onto different hardware weekly and set your RTOs properly.

Considering my objection to using 3rd party cloud storage has everything to do with it being 3rd party in the first place....

Do the server farms? Used to use LTO tapes for backups, but unfortunately that's become too expensive for all but the biggest operations.

 

[name99]

Trivially rare? Two SSD failures in the whole wide world? I don't know why so many people use these boards to troll random strangers. It isn't funny, it's just sad.

I did not say two SSD failures in the whole world. I said
"SSD dies completely, *after warranty period*, but *before I want to replace the Mac*"

And failure in this context is a slippery issue. What matters is that some particular portion of the SSD can still be read; it does not matter if the SSD no longer supports writing at all, or does so but very slowly (the most common "failure" modes).

We have had millions, billions of these sorts of devices in the field (iPhones and other phones, laptops and other computers) with built in flash drives. And yet I'm unaware of any plague of failure of these devices... It's something people rant about all the time, with zero real-world impact.

I've had LOTS of computers in my life.
I've had plenty of hard drives fail (to first approximation, every one of them, though sometimes after more than ten years).
I've had iPhones and one iPad fail (by battery expansion, in every case, and after 8..10 years).
I've had ONE flash drive actually fail; that was in the early days of flash, and a cheap 3rd party brand (my guess is the controller failed, not the actual flash).
I've had some flash drives driven to what's claimed to be near failure (like 90% of block rewrite capacity used up, according to SMART) but that's not a failure as far as we're concerned, and it's for a machine that's ten years old (old Sandy Bridge laptop).

 

[ric22]

I did not say two SSD failures in the whole world. I said
"SSD dies completely, *after warranty period*, but *before I want to replace the Mac*"

And failure in this context is a slippery issue. What matters is that some particular portion of the SSD can still be read; it does not matter if the SSD no longer supports writing at all, or does so but very slowly (the most common "failure" modes).

We have had millions, billions of these sorts of devices in the field (iPhones and other phones, laptops and other computers) with built in flash drives. And yet I'm unaware of any plague of failure of these devices... It's something people rant about all the time, with zero real-world impact.

I've had LOTS of computers in my life.
I've had plenty of hard drives fail (to first approximation, every one of them, though sometimes after more than ten years).
I've had iPhones and one iPad fail (by battery expansion, in every case, and after 8..10 years).
I've had ONE flash drive actually fail; that was in the early days of flash, and a cheap 3rd party brand (my guess is the controller failed, not the actual flash).
I've had some flash drives driven to what's claimed to be near failure (like 90% of block rewrite capacity used up, according to SMART) but that's not a failure as far as we're concerned, and it's for a machine that's ten years old (old Sandy Bridge laptop).

Didn't you say it only mattered to two people in the world? It implied it was a problem that would impact only two people "in the world".

 

[name99]

Didn't you say it only mattered to two people in the world? It implied it was a problem that would impact only two people "in the world".

Do you seriously not understand the logical restrictions inherent in the sentence
"SSD dies completely, *after warranty period*, but *before I want to replace the Mac*"
?
I even put the two qualifiers in **'s the second time round, to make the point more obvious.

 

[ric22]

Do you seriously not understand the logical restrictions inherent in the sentence
"SSD dies completely, *after warranty period*, but *before I want to replace the Mac*"
?
I even put the two qualifiers in **'s the second time round, to make the point more obvious.

I have a very low opinion of your "points" in this matter. We'll have to agree to disagree.

 

[MacBH928]

What is a definition of “pro” here? Nearly all the work I do (film/tv) requires offloading and transcoding to multiple hard drives rarely do I do any work that requires writing to the internal. And given that you can build an 8tb external that reads/writes at ~2Gb/s for a little over 1000 bucks it seems silly to pay 2400 more for internal storage. What pro work are you referring to? Is that a music thing?

i hope you don't mind me asking but,

1-Do people in the video industry still prefer mac? Last I heard it was much cheaper to build PC than to buy a Mac and the software availability and performance is better on windows except for Apple specific like Final Cut

2-Do people in the film/tv industry use the consumer available products like Final Cut, Avid and Adobe Premier or they have a different set of software?

 

[Killroy]

i hope you don't mind me asking but,

1-Do people in the video industry still prefer mac? Last I heard it was much cheaper to build PC than to buy a Mac and the software availability and performance is better on windows except for Apple specific like Final Cut

2-Do people in the film/tv industry use the consumer available products like Final Cut, Avid and Adobe Premier or they have a different set of software?

No in 1 and no in 2. Professionals prefer prebuilt. And for two you can run anyone of those software on a Mac. Calling Avid a consumer app is a joke. A full blown Avid system and support can cost you big bucks. And Adobe Premier, you have to subscribe to the service.

 

[foliovision]

I admire the authoritative tone of the nonsensical statement that “at least every two years [computers] need to be opened up and cleaned out properly.” I mean, this being the internet and all, some people might even believe it.

Okay, don't clean out your computers. Watch them start to flake out and overheat and eventually croak within three or four. Still rocking two 2011 17" matte screen MBP and have a suite of four 2009 Mac Pros at work running just fine too.

Finally retiring them now for silent M1 Macs as at last Apple has made some computers where an "upgrade" has some value.

 

[Ethosik]

Okay, don't clean out your computers. Watch them start to flake out and overheat and eventually croak within three or four. Still rocking two 2011 17" matte screen MBP and have a suite of four 2009 Mac Pros at work running just fine too.

Finally retiring them now for silent M1 Macs as at last Apple has made some computers where an "upgrade" has some value.

I never clean out my computers. My 2010 Mac Pro is still going strong as it did day 1.

 

[MacBH928]

No in 1 and no in 2. Professionals prefer prebuilt. And for two you can run anyone of those software on a Mac. Calling Avid a consumer app is a joke. A full blown Avid system and support can cost you big bucks. And Adobe Premier, you have to subscribe to the service.

media composer of AVID is $50/month so yes I would say consumer can get their hands on it and use it like final cut pro.

 

[Killroy]

media composer of AVID is $50/month so yes I would say consumer can get their hands on it and use it like final cut pro.

There are multiple versions of media composer From the free one to the biggest the professional one is Enterprise version.

 

[foliovision]

I never clean out my computers. My 2010 Mac Pro is still going strong as it did day 1.

If this is true, I'd love to see a photo of the insides – probably not very appealing. You've lucked out that nothing on the circuit boards has overheated under the dust and burned out the motherboard or CPU board.

If it's clean after twelve years without being air blasted or at least dusted, then it's located in a technical clean room with zero dust. My Mac Pros are in a clean office but the dust which comes off of them during an airblast if I forgot to blast them for a year and a half is thick and unpleasant to breathe.

 

[albertaka]

That looks like a 2230 SSD

I counted the pins. 26 + 10. And the contact is not on the edge, like a standard NVMe M.2 card. It is also not like the MAC-format of other internal Apple SSD's.
So my impression: it must differ. A new propretary format? Definitely (??) (as the Fixit tear-down suggest) also a drive that requires some external recognition software = in the configurator, not Disk Utility.

 

[albertaka]

Tim Crook wants to maximize profits, and that is probably why the Mac Studio was designed intentionally so that the SSD is difficult to access. Either Cook is so out of touch, or he outright doesn't care that many Mac users are on a tight budget and would like to get a Mac for a lower price now and upgrade the SSD and RAM and a later date when they can afford it.

The problem I have with this policy is not that I'll buy a rip-off from some crook,
- but that the engineered model contains parts that later are obliviated. I bought an iMac Retina with its VERY EXPENSIVE Fusion drive. High Sierra made the HDD part unuseable, APFS could not be mounted effectively. Everyone knows. BAD BAD. It DOES make me worried about new purchases. Its not a crook who sells but a crook who does not give service.
Good example: My $7K Leica M9 had a engineering fault in the sensor, so Leica replaced all sensors at their cost. Apple didn't do that so that makes me very wary of purchasing a Studio.
Lesson: I use my iMac now with an external boot, upgrading the internals is just too complicated for me, Apple should have supported us.

In 2017 I also bought the cheapest new non-user-upgradable Mini ; and when I used it for audio, after a year I needed more memory, so had to sell it. I don't like that.
Lesson: We just do not know everything upfront. Neither the direction of technology nor the development of our tastes and software.

 

[HDFan]

Okay, don't clean out your computers. Watch them start to flake out and overheat and eventually croak within three or four.

Rather a challenge to clean the insides of an iMac or a Mac Studio. Never cleaned my MacPro tower innards. Quite dusty inside but never had any problems.