Mac Studio Teardown Indicates That SSD Storage May Be Upgradeable

[Bearxor]

Apple doesn’t think any storage in its small form factors or laptops is user accessible.

I had my 2007 MBP with the faulty GTX8600m denied because I replaced the hard drive.

 

[ct2k7]

Apple doesn’t think any storage in its small form factors or laptops is user accessible.

I had my 2007 MBP with the faulty GTX8600m denied because I replaced the hard drive.

Was the cause of the fault related to the hard drive?

 

[blackcrayon]

A desktop machine build for studio work must not have a soldered SSD; it will degrade much faster at such intense use.

Degrade in performance in 3 years or less? If so good reason for Applecare...

 

[blackcrayon]

3th-party SSDs and memory and just as good and sometimes even better than the ones Apple delivers for 50% of the price. Apple doesn't deliver something special though. Besides that those requirements change quicker than CPU, GPU and especially connections ports. By the time you need 128 GB RAM or 8 TB storage other vendors have it for 1/10th the price Apple is selling it now and the SSD might even be faster.

Yes, but then your argument becomes "Macs are more expensive to buy!" and then are you really revealing any breaking information?

 

[justperry]

Great news.

But in general, I don't quite understand the fuss around user-upgradability. Why do storage and memory need to be upgradable? Just buy as much as you need over the machine's lifetime right away. Think you will need 32 GB memory in the future instead of 16 GB? Then just get 32 GB memory now. Think you will eventually need 4 TB storage instead of 2 TB? Then just get 4 TB now.

A machine that is good enough at the time when you buy it will also be good enough five years later.

Eventually after some years, the CPU becomes the bottle neck, and since that is not really replaceable anyway, whenever that point comes, you will need an entirely new machine anyway, not just a memory or storage upgrade.

Because

1. Apple prices for storage/RAM.

2. Because we can.

3. User needs change, what is sufficient today may not be that way later on, student now, later Engineer for instance.

4. It used to be normal to upgrade later on, seems to me they..Apple.. did a good job moulding people.

5. My 2012 Mac Mini is still doing well after storage/RAM upgrades, but I wish the Graphics card could be updated.

6. SSD's sometimes break, so, you don't need to send your mac to Apple, just order SSD online, next day fixed.

7. Overtime SSD's and RAM gets cheaper.

 

[sw1tcher]

But in general, I don't quite understand the fuss around user-upgradability. Why do storage and memory need to be upgradable? Just buy as much as you need over the machine's lifetime right away. Think you will need 32 GB memory in the future instead of 16 GB? Then just get 32 GB memory now. Think you will eventually need 4 TB storage instead of 2 TB? Then just get 4 TB now.

It isn't always as simple as buy what you might need in the future right now so you don't need to upgrade later.

Some people could underestimate what they think they may need in the future. Other people may not want to pay Apple's ridiculously overpriced storage prices ($600 to go from 512GB SSD to 2TB SSD? $1,200 to get 4TB? ? ). There's also the possibility that the storage component will wear out.

M1 Mac users report excessive SSD usage, potentially affecting the component's lifespan - 9to5Mac

Some advanced users have been reporting an overuse of the SSD for writing and reading data on the newly released...

9to5mac.com

Heavy Disk Write usage. ( Killing SSD )

Before My previous Reboot, my Activity Monitor was showing 16TB of data written in total. Kernel_task was responsible for majority of that. TB, not GB. That had me extremely worried, the starting date of Activity Monitor was 16 days ago according to "Sample Text". That is 800GB, more then my...

forums.macrumors.com

ssd swap - high usage of Terabytes Written

Please read the update at the end of this post. Hi, I have Mac mini m1 256/16 for almost 8 days. After those 8 days I can see 0.9 TB written. From what I found on the web this ssd should last for ~~150 TBW. After 8 days I have 0.9 TBW :) I checked on my MacBook Pro 13" from 2018, 256/16 as...

forums.macrumors.com

And don't forget about those (e.g. students) who aren't as well off as you and can't afford to get their Mac's storage maxed out.

 

[mikethemartian]

The hardware engineer responsible for the socket on the MacStudio was last seen packing his belongings from an office desk in Cupertino.

They will now be working with the engineer who had the hubris to include a screw in the original iMac case.

 

[mikethemartian]

And if you are that level of a pro that needs the raw speeds of the internal drive vs an external fast SSD, you have enough money where it is not an issue. I learned long LONG LONG ago to not have my working files on my OS drive. I have gone through many corruptions, drive failures, computer deaths to count and lost a lot of data. My main drive is only reserved for OS and applications. Everything I do is on my externals and RAIDs. Its also beneficial when you are someone like me that has 7 computers and likes to transfer work between them all.

Unless you are someone like a graduate student who might need fast speeds but don’t have a commensurate budget.

 

[ct2k7]

Degrade in performance in 3 years or less? If so good reason for Applecare...

Wear and tear isn’t covered by AppleCare?

 

[Bearxor]

Was the cause of the fault related to the hard drive?

No. Every single GeForce 8600m produced has a defect. Wether or not it breaks seems to be a toss-up.

In late 2008 Apple issued a warranty extension but I had done enough to my MBP at that point where it wasn’t warrantable.

After I got rejected from the Apple Store I looked around for what I could do and ended up dismantling the machine and putting the logic board in the oven to reflow the solder connecting the die to the package (where the defect in manufacturing was) and that worked for about four months. Then I replaced my logic board with a 2008 model off eBay and didn’t have an issue with that GPU for a couple of years but eventually it died.

My point is - if Apple considers the storage in the studio to not be user serviceable you’d better be prepared to switch it back if you ever need to take it in for service because they’re dicks and are likely to deny you because you took it apart and messed with a part that isn’t supposed to be user serviceable.

 

[justperry]

Its also a legal issue. Apple clearly said not user upgradeable because having exposed power supply that can shock you is very dangerous. Max even pointed it out in the video. If someone gets shocked upgrading it, Apple can point to their document stating its not user upgradeable.

I can tell you that you will not die from a shock of a tiny capacitor!

In other words, you will not die from opening up the Mac Studio.

 

[ouimetnick]

Great news.

But in general, I don't quite understand the fuss around user-upgradability. Why do storage and memory need to be upgradable? Just buy as much as you need over the machine's lifetime right away. Think you will need 32 GB memory in the future instead of 16 GB? Then just get 32 GB memory now. Think you will eventually need 4 TB storage instead of 2 TB? Then just get 4 TB now.

A machine that is good enough at the time when you buy it will also be good enough five years later.

Eventually after some years, the CPU becomes the bottle neck, and since that is not really replaceable anyway, whenever that point comes, you will need an entirely new machine anyway, not just a memory or storage upgrade.

I bought a base MacBook Pro in 2010 and then put on a larger hard drive and more ram. Did this twice (the second time I maxed it to 16GB and a 1TB SSD)

I also bought my used 2014 MBP with 128GB of storage and then replaced the pathetic 128GB with 512GB. Between those machines, I saved myself over $1000 by not paying Apple’s outrageous prices for those upgrades.

Also I like the SSD to be removable so data can be recovered should the logic board fail or liquid spill render the machine unable to boot. I don’t really care for socketed ram these days since I had to reseat the ram in older MacBooks when I was in high school.

 

[ouimetnick]

Its also a legal issue. Apple clearly said not user upgradeable because having exposed power supply that can shock you is very dangerous. Max even pointed it out in the video. If someone gets shocked upgrading it, Apple can point to their document stating its not user upgradeable.

Eh, that’s just Apple fear mongering and being cheap. Put blender resistors across the high voltage caps and move along would have added a few cents to the cost..

Even then, if the unit isn’t connected to AC, a shock from a SMPS isn’t gonna kill a healthy person. It will startle them for sure and wake them up, but I’ve been schooled by camera flash capacitors, and several SMPS, but I’m still here. I just use a resistor to discharge them now and keep my fingers away when trouble shooting with power supplied.

 

[Ethosik]

Even then, if the unit isn’t connected to AC, a shock from a SMPS isn’t gonna kill a healthy person. It will startle them for sure and wake them up, but I’ve been schooled by camera flash capacitors, and several SMPS, but I’m still here. I just use a resistor to discharge them now and keep my fingers away when trouble shooting with power supplied.

You assume everyone opening this up will be healthy. It opens them up to a whole legal issue if someone has some health issues and the shock causes some problems. You know how lawyers are, just look at cereal boxes and see the notice that its not the same size as what is in the box. Why Pizza boxes need to say CAUTION: HOT on them.

 

[bice]

but these sockets seem proprietary, right? seems stupid unless there are performance benefits
proprietary RAM modules - understand, performance benefits

Oh, but there are.
Apple's business will perform much better with this!

 

[Ethosik]

Unless you are someone like a graduate student who might need fast speeds but don’t have a commensurate budget.

Why would a graduate student be buying a $2,000 or $4,000 system in the first place if they are concerned about budget? Why not just get a $1,500 Windows PC which will be better from an upgradeable perspective anyway?

 

[foliovision]

That's my thinking. In all of the loud WHINE about Apple SSD pricing, it feels like most are missing that this seems to be about the FASTEST SSD speeds generally available. Many seem to be wanting to go minimal internal storage and pile it up outside but I wonder if they can get any kind of comparable speeds outside for the same or less, even with some RAID options. I've seen lots of "super fast" reviews of various SSD cases and sticks... but super fast is apparently defined as up into the 2X00 READ speeds, which is about HALF these speeds.

Apart from memory swapping (on the boot drive), there's very few applications which Photographers have searched high and low for photo apps which notice any speed difference above 450 MB/sec (SATA3) and failed to find any which show any difference in either user interface or pure benchmarks.

 

[Ethosik]

Apart from memory swapping (on the boot drive), there's very few applications which Photographers have searched high and low for photo apps which notice any speed difference above 450 MB/sec (SATA3) and failed to find any which show any difference in either user interface or pure benchmarks.

Even my video work I don't notice a difference above 450 MB/s. The only reason I have fast NVMe is fast transfer between two identical drives. Sure if people are working on RED RAW video and other things they need more performance than SATA SSDs. But they generally have networked 10Gbe or a Direct attached RAID array for that.

I have a fast working drive and a drive dedicated for transfer. I attach the transfer drive to my NAS and let it transfer as fast as possible since I don't have 10Gbe yet.

 

[foliovision]

Even my video work I don't notice a difference above 450 MB/s. The only reason I have fast NVMe is fast transfer between two identical drives.

Interesting. From 1 GB/sec, almost all transfers seem fast to me. There's no external storage which writes much faster than 2 GB/sec so no matter how fast Apple's internal SSD's get, transfers won't go faster than the external drive writes.

Out of intellectual/technical curiosity, I'd love to hear about an application which can take advantage of SSD speeds higher than 2 GB/sec.

 

[justperry]

You assume everyone opening this up will be healthy. It opens them up to a whole legal issue if someone has some health issues and the shock causes some problems. You know how lawyers are, just look at cereal boxes and see the notice that its not the same size as what is in the box. Why Pizza boxes need to say CAUTION: HOT on them.

Again, nobody will die from a tiny discharge from these capacitors, not even a sick person.

And then this, the US legal system sucks.

 

[grad]

Because

1. Apple prices for storage/RAM.

2. Because we can.

3. User needs change, what is sufficient today may not be that way later on, student now, later Engineer for instance.

4. It used to be normal to upgrade later on, seems to me they..Apple.. did a good job moulding people.

5. My 2012 Mac Mini is still doing well after storage/RAM upgrades, but I wish the Graphics card could be updated.

6. SSD's sometimes break, so, you don't need to send your mac to Apple, just order SSD online, next day fixed.

7. Overtime SSD's and RAM gets cheaper.

People still forget the privacy aspect. I guess many are ok with handling their stored data elsewhere if the machine suddenly dies, is unbootable and needs service. I am not. And don't get me started with encryption.

 

[827538]

I understand soldering RAM into the SoC as there's real performance gains to be had and SODIMMs actually take up quite a bit of space, but SSDs should really be user replaceable, even on MacBook Pro's as the space savings are so slight and they don't have any performance advantage vs soldering.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Guys, guys: think spinning Beach Ball.

Speed up the read/writes and you will see less Beach Ball. I can edit HD video in FCPX on 2010 Mac hardware with some files on HDDs… but there is inevitably lots of time waiting for writes to complete… else sluggish multitasking takes over… if not time watching a rainbow skittle turn.

Hopefully much faster reads/writes result is less time waiting on those kinds of tasks to complete…. or trying to push on with a more sluggish Mac.

If we get super fast brains and super fast RAM, the bottleneck becomes read/write speeds. Faster makes all the rest work better… or shall I say sooner. Else that RAM and those brains have to WAIT for what they need to do their thing.

 

[ouimetnick]

You assume everyone opening this up will be healthy. It opens them up to a whole legal issue if someone has some health issues and the shock causes some problems. You know how lawyers are, just look at cereal boxes and see the notice that its not the same size as what is in the box. Why Pizza boxes need to say CAUTION: HOT on them.

Give them a warning. Anything can be dangerous when handled incorrectly. Apple used to claim that they wouldn’t allow people to service their own iPhones because the battery poses a safety risk. Well they announced last year that folks can replace parts in their iPhone starting this year.

 

[huge_apple_fangirl]

Good.