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New 2014 Mac Mini Has Soldered RAM, Not User Replaceable

IIRC, these Intel CPUs/chipsets max out at 16GB anyway.

Still waiting for iFixit confirmation that the 1TB HDD in the mid tier will be a straight swap for a 1TB M550 SSD, otherwise, I guess I'll have to go with the 1TB Fusion drive.

Glad I have a previous generation 2xHDD Mac mini already at Macminicolo. Hope it lives a long happy life there.
 
rocknblogger said:
The source in the OP only says that it's "looking like" the RAM is soldered. That's a lot different than confirming. In fact he didn't confirm anything.
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If you keep reading further down the entry he does explicitly confirm it, although he doesn't give a source which would be helpful. Here's his quote ..

Update:

Confirmed: RAM in the new Mac mini is not user accessible. Hard drive can be replaced/upgraded, though not keeping warranty.

— Brian Stucki (@brianstucki) October 17, 2014
Click to expand...
 
DeanLubaki said:
If it's because normal RAM takes too much space because of its connectors, why not create a new one, just like they did at the beginning for the SSD drives in Retina MacBooks?
It's becoming annoying to see everything being soldered and not replaceable!
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Its not the space.. its the ability of charging the customer directly for the upgrade (with Apple-grade markup) versus letting random RAM vendors fight for the after-market.
 
macfoxpro said:
What will I ever do with just 16GB of RAM?
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It doesn't go past 16GB either way. The reason people want socketed ram is so that they are not locked into the top model to obtain it. They increased their markups on the mid and upper models once again. I did expect the increased cpu cost at the $600 range to be passed on somewhere, but they didn't provide a lot for it.

DeanLubaki said:
If it's because normal RAM takes too much space because of its connectors, why not create a new one, just like they did at the beginning for the SSD drives in Retina MacBooks?
It's becoming annoying to see everything being soldered and not replaceable!
Click to expand...

Socketed ram takes less surface area. It only requires more vertical space. It's the opposite of a space saving measure as implemented here. Also what do you mean create a new one? The mini will never motivate a lot of custom work, and beyond that an SSD is completely different from RAM. The two are not comparable items.
 
Renzatic said:
That'd be a decent excuse if Apple were going for a super thin laptop, but here it's just money gouging. You have to pay them $300 for an $80 upgrade of ram.

Intel NUCs are a helluva lot smaller than the Mini, sport roughly the same hardware (the Mini does have a better integrated GPU), yet have replaceable HDDs and ram. The Mini, on the other hand, is exactly the same size as it was before, and was well known for being easy to upgrade.

There's no excuse for it, other than, quite literally, Apple doesn't want you to.
Click to expand...

Actually the $300 you cited is the excuse.. a damn juicy markup of an excuse :apple:
 
groovyd said:
just buy it maxed out and get over it... relax and use the thing instead of trying to make a project out of it. this is just a simple compact computer, just use it like one and pass it on via ebay when it starts to feel dated for half of the next new thing and repeat. these are the kind of people who spend 10 cents to save a nickel. work it out, is it really worth the $20 you might save and the hour of your time to dig into and start voiding warrantees? this was clearly never intended to sell as a do it yourself kit.
Click to expand...

Hardly. Upgrading the ram in the old Mac Mini didn't void the warranty, and took about 45 seconds to do. The whole machine was designed to be easily accessed, and you'd save...as I posted above...a ton doing it.

The new Mini is almost the exact same build. It's just...closed off for the simple sake of it.

So instead of going with the base, then buying some more later if you need it. You have to buy a new one, then sell the old machine off to recoup your money. Depending on when you do it, you'll probably end up spending more time, effort, and money doing that than just getting a new stick and popping it in.

Cuz seriously, upgrading ram is about as easy as changing batteries out of a remote.
 
n0cus said:
The 2012 mini with a quad core processor is looking more attractive than the new ones.
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Glad I still have mine. Quad i7, 8GB Ram, 256 SSD / 1TB HDD DIY Fusion Drive setup. Bought it on MacRumors Marketplace for $600 shipped with wireless keyboard, magic trackpad and Mobee Magic Bar charger for my wireless keyboard / pad.
 
Apple is really starting to question my loyalty to them. I'm tired of playing these games.
 
thekev said:
Socketed ram takes less surface area. It only requires more vertical space. It's the opposite of a space saving measure as implemented here. Also what do you mean create a new one? The mini will never motivate a lot of custom work, and beyond that an SSD is completely different from RAM. The two are not comparable items.
Click to expand...

The mini used SODIMM (laptop) memory, which does take up surface area. The soldered RAM may take up less space, but not that much less. Custom RAM modules are out of the question--too expensive. Only 'off the shelf' RAM should be used in Macs, even if they are soldered modules.

Think of it this way--the logic board didn't need to change much from the 2012 model -- why did they have to make this change?
 
Apple06 said:
This really puzzles me and surely over the top.. isn't the 16GB the same RAM??? Why the extra $100 from base model!!
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Cheapskates pay more... just like any other business (airlines/ hotels/ cell carriers): businesses tend to treat their higher paying customers (slightly) better.
 
Another classic move by Apple to force users to max out the memory and NOT be able to use 3rd part memory like I did on my old MBP. This of course forced me to choose between 16GB of RAM or 8GB RAM and 512GB SSD, naturally I chose the 16GB of RAM since I can replace the SSD later on, but its a dick move my Apple.
 
xmichaelp said:
Nope. RAM ain't that cheap anymore.
Click to expand...

RAM may not be $80 to a retail customer for sure. But Apple is the 800 lb gorilla in the computer parts environment. Their orders can literally mean the difference between bankruptcy and food on the table for many of these vendors on razor thin margins. They will definitely NOT be paying anything even an order of magnitude close to retail prices for the parts they buy.
 
John.B said:
IIRC, these Intel CPUs/chipsets max out at 16GB anyway.

Still waiting for iFixit confirmation that the 1TB HDD in the mid tier will be a straight swap for a 1TB M550 SSD, otherwise, I guess I'll have to go with the 1TB Fusion drive.

Glad I have a previous generation 2xHDD Mac mini already at Macminicolo. Hope it lives a long happy life there.
Click to expand...

Also waiting for iFixit confirmation on RAM. Don't trust a random guy on the internet saying he "knows".
 
I hate to say this but it does make sense in Apple's case:

  1. Soldered to the board means less manual assembling, saving labor costs.
  2. Less "failure" rate from RAM partially undocking (not as common as it once was, but still a factor at this volume).
  3. Some power savings (I know it doesn't amount to much, but it looks good on paper I guess.).
  4. Possibly better access to the RAM ("closer" to the logic board), but my expertise is faltering here so don't quote me on it.

As a consumer though...I will consider other routes come upgrade time, because this is just b*******.
 
Soldered RAM is pretty lame. If they were going to do this, at least make the Mac mini smaller!
 
tech4all said:
Last I checked Macs had like 10% market share. Windows is still king in the desktop OS arena. They still have a long way for OS X to be like iOS in terms of popularity.
Click to expand...

Actually, since we are talking about install volumes; iOS has also settled towards ~13% of the worldwide OS marketshare too. It is not the install base king by a long shot.

Android vs. iOS
 
batting1000 said:
I'm soldered into the Apple ecosystem.
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I'm not and it turns out to be one of the smartest decisions lately. Even from the days of hackintoshing to try out OSX i made a decision to only use apps that are available on Windows and OSX. Lately I have been using windows and OSX together and with dropbox and Apps that I use I am able to switch at will.
 
altaic said:
Well that sucks. I was hoping to buy the new Mac Mini and sell my old iMac, but 16 gigs of RAM is barely enough for what I do now. If they'd updated the Mac Pro as well, I'd be tempted, but I'm not gonna shell out top dollar for a year old machine. Despite Apple's declaration of their best product pipeline this year, they're a bit disappointing. :/

Edit: Seems to me that Apple no longer recognizes the market of those who use a computer connected to an hdtv for both work and play.
Click to expand...

Put that on the IntelRumors forum. The chips they have available for this kind of computer only support max 16GB...
 
Total Bummer

If this is true I'm forced into another upgrade path from my current 16gb mini. I was looking forward to a solid quad i7 with at least 32gb, but it's not to be, at least from Apple. Very Sad:(

I wonder if there would be a gray market opertunity here?
 
Renzatic said:
That'd be a decent excuse if Apple were going for a super thin laptop, but here it's just money gouging. You have to pay them $300 for an $80 upgrade of ram.

Intel NUCs are a helluva lot smaller than the Mini, sport roughly the same hardware (the Mini does have a better integrated GPU), yet have replaceable HDDs and ram. The Mini, on the other hand, is exactly the same size as it was before, and was well known for being easy to upgrade.

There's no excuse for it, other than, quite literally, Apple doesn't want you to.
Click to expand...

As long as it helps Apple make bigger profits, why worry about the consumer? All I care about is how much money Apple makes. :D:D


Disclaimer: This post is intended to be humorous. Any resemblance to anything posted on MR is purely intentional. :D
 
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