New 27-Inch iMac's Storage Affixed to Logic Board, 4TB and 8TB Configurations Have Expansion Connector

[mi7chy]

Where's the bullet point on their Product Environmental Report where the whole computer is thrown out when the SSD goes bad? Very eco friendly there.

https://www.apple.com/environment/p...nch_iMac_with_Retina5KDisplay_PER_Aug2020.pdf

 

[Just sayin...]

You guys act like repairability is a new problem with Apple. Their products have never been very repairable. Go back and open an iMac G3 from the 90s. Not exactly the easiest process to do upgrades in that thing.

That would be incorrect. My 2008 Mac Pro‘s graphics card failed and I was able to replace it. I increased RAM from 16GB to 32GB and added/changed internal storage several times over its’ ten-year life. It was a great system that was VERY repairable by me.

 

[Brien]

Hardware encryption. Data theft is a real thing, even physical theft.

Does the average person really have to worry about someone ripping a HD out of their computer though?

I'd rather have expandability and cheap options to replace. No reason for non-replaceable, non-removable storage in a desktop.

 

[deconstruct60]

Tsk. If the LB craps out you lose all you data. Am I the only one who has issues with this? If that wasn't bad enough, Apple (Apple's repair tech) will have access to your data once he repairs and tests‡ the LB.

Unless you hand them the password; they do not necessarily have access.

T2 drives encrypt data by default. Even if you don't turn on FileVault the data is *still* encrypted. If the logic board is screwed up enough that the T2 can't power on invoke the key to unlock the data, then it isn't going to be able to be read ( at least by mere mortals. A three letter agency with some quantum computers may be able to read short term. ).

Any logic board repair that triggers a T2 key reset will also wipe access to the data.

The default is also not to external boot. In that context, the default path if still have same logic board is that should boot into password prompt. There are some ways of going far out of the way to but now in range of someone who has lots of spare time.

If have set for external boot and FileVault is on they would be able to mount/run an external diagnostic macOS image but the drive would be locked.

 

[DanBig]

From a repairability standpoint... Let's just say I've never seen an SSD fail in an iMac and I've been working with hundreds of them over the past few years. They're super reliable and I think Apple realizes this so they cut costs by soldering them on.

That leaves the expansion standpoint. Frankly, this is not a big deal either. Apple doesn't even use standard M.2 drives; they use their own proprietary interface. On top of that, these are iMacs! You can easily plug in cheap external storage, and since the machines typically stay in one place it's not inconvenient like it would be on a Macbook.

I'm still irritated by everything being soldered down, but it's not as big a deal as it was in the past. If Apple bothered to use an industry standard like M.2, it would be a bigger loss, but they don't anyway.

Spend some time on iFixit answers! Sadly, they do fail! Mostly on systems with heavy data churn with too little storage or too little free space!

 

[td2243]

Where's the bullet point on their Product Environmental Report where the whole computer is thrown out when the SSD goes bad? Very eco friendly there.

Amen to that. But remember, being “eco friendly” isn’t actually about eco friendly. It is about being able to say and advertise that you are eco friendly.

 

[Quu]

This is ridiculous. Why does Apple continue to make hard to repair PCs???

I honestly think it's because they want to discourage repairing so people buy new machines when their old ones start to fail. And it's quite despicable. I can understand soldering some core components where space is at a premium but in the iMac it's just kinda ridiculous to be honest.

Sad thing is, SSD's are quite unreliable compared to other solid state parts (CPU, RAM). Yet on the iMac the CPU and RAM both are replaceable, neither are soldered and instead utilise a socket and a slot. Just ... sad really.

 

[Shirasaki]

Why not apple soldier the screen to the chassis, and sell two “accidental damage” to replace the whole iMac?

Also, how far should we go to sacrifice stuff in the name of security? Burn “find my Mac” Apple ID into T2 chip And cannot be deleted or modified by anyone but Apple in the warehouse? Permanently removing external device Booting support since it is useless to average users anyway? Oh, and remove all USB ports because apparently stuff can be transferred wirelessly already. And pretty fast.

 

[seek3r]

That would be incorrect. My 2008 Mac Pro‘s graphics card failed and I was able to replace it. I increased RAM from 16GB to 32GB and added/changed internal storage several times over its’ ten-year life. It was a great system that was VERY repairable by me.

Amen!

My 2010 Mac Pro has:

* an upgraded processor
* a lot more RAM
* an upgraded graphics card
* upgraded WiFi and Bluetooth
* an added 10Gbe PCIe card
* an added USB3 PCIe card
* a bootable NVMe SSD on a PCIe card

Or, in other words, almost everything upgraded

 

[Shirasaki]

At least with removable storage you elliminate the problem of losing all your data if something goes wrong with OSX because you was able to intall another storage device, install OSX onto that and then put the original storage device in a usb caddy and connect it to the mac to be able to still have access to your data.

With soldered on storage that is no longer possible and unless you regularly carry out daily backups, all your data is lost if OSX crashes due to system files going bad and your forced to do a complete reinstall which of course means you lose all your data.

All you need to do is look in the forums at mac owners complaining of OSX problems and people recommending that they reinstall OSX to fix the problem. Apple are now basically saying, if you do not back up your data on a regular basis and something was to go wrong, your basically screwed on data recovery but don't go complaining to us (Apple).

And there goes all “we care about user data” marketing bs.
One thing I will believe is Apple is the best marketing company on the planet period.

 

[bpeeps]

From a repairability standpoint... Let's just say I've never seen an SSD fail in an iMac and I've been working with hundreds of them over the past few years. They're super reliable and I think Apple realizes this so they cut costs by soldering them on.

That leaves the expansion standpoint. Frankly, this is not a big deal either. Apple doesn't even use standard M.2 drives; they use their own proprietary interface. On top of that, these are iMacs! You can easily plug in cheap external storage, and since the machines typically stay in one place it's not inconvenient like it would be on a Macbook.

I'm still irritated by everything being soldered down, but it's not as big a deal as it was in the past. If Apple bothered to use an industry standard like M.2, it would be a bigger loss, but they don't anyway.

Voice of reason.

 

[BeatCrazy]

How come we're not talking about the expansion board on the 4TB and 8TB models? What could we use that for?

 

[topdrawer]

You guys asked for it and ya got it. They got rid of the Fusion Drive on the base config

but now it's literally fused.

and it makes sense that if you pay for a lot of storage upfront, you can ad even more storage after market, but if you go with little storage, you are stuck with little storage

 

[Shivetya]

This will count against the repairability score on IFIXIT by at least 2 points...

I wonder if they go into negative numbers.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Amen to that. But remember, being “eco friendly” isn’t actually about eco friendly. It is about being able to say and advertise that you are eco friendly.

“eco friendly” is more about the person owning the device than the device itself. If someone is going to throw out their computer when the SSD goes bad when there are companies in existence that will route that computer back to Apple for recycling (that’s quite efficient due to how they make the devices), there’s nothing that Apple can do about that. I’m sure there are piles and piles of old RAM, old CPU’s, swapped out graphics cards and SSD’s in landfills, too. All COULD be recycled, but if the folks that own them don’t want to, you can’t force ‘em.

 

[Joniz]

What really bites my turd is that it comes with Catalina.

Still on Mojave and it looks like my MBA 2013 will just have to last forever.

 

[deconstruct60]

How come we're not talking about the expansion board on the 4TB and 8TB models? What could we use that for?

Because not particularly an "expansion" board. They are pragmatically internal components to the SSD implemented using the T2' chip's SSD controller logic. The only thing that is going to "fit" into that socket is an Apple "SSD module" (i.e., proprietary NAND daughtercard). Those cards are not in and of themselves a SSD. ( it is just a subcomponent of a SSD).


If there is only one socket and that capacity has to be matched to the same NAND chips used on the soldered part ( has to be a pair like in the iMac Pro and Mac Pro) there is extremely unlikely not going to be any 3rd going to pop up here. If the board is used of instead of also soldering the NAND to the board then it doesn't have a tech implementation pairing issue, but it isn't a commodity item.

There is no clean data path back to the CPU in the socket. It can't be "used" for some other purpose. It is solely for the SSD controller to talk to the NAND chips on the daughter card. So unless implemented an Apple SSD there is no other use.


P.S. soldering to the logic board isn't very space efficient. Eventually the tear downs will show , but a pretty good The cards here are saving some space. Up until point where really need it (still keep it cool and don't want to wontonly throw space at it ), Apple just goes the higher profit margin way.

 

[Westside guy]

On top of that, these are iMacs! You can easily plug in cheap external storage, and since the machines typically stay in one place it's not inconvenient like it would be on a Macbook.

Of course, that was also Apple's logic with the Trashcan Mac Pro.

I'm just really tired of Apple's habit of making repair harder to save a few fractions of a cent or a few tenths of a millimeter. SSDs are reliable, yes - but they do fail. And when they do it with RAM, it's even more inexcusable.

FWIW I have replaced drives in (older, obviously) iMacs as well as MacBook Pros. Most of the time it wasn't because the original drive failed - there are other reasons which do come up occasionally.

 

[nt5672]

I am pretty much done with buying new Macs. They insist on making it harder to repair/more expensive/difficult to access for absolutely no real reason. Greed maybe.

Yep agree, been in the process of switching to Linux and Windows since beginning of the year. Better software, absolutely not! But it is better compatibility with the world and more importantly I can use my computer for whatever I want without having to put up with Apple's nanny culture; which is certainly coming to the Mac.

 

[itsmilo]

...How many people aren't running regular backups? I've always had time machine running on my mac for over 7 years now, Is this not common?

unfortunately no one I know is doing back ups and then cries for help when their things break. It’s the worst on iPhone cuz people aren’t willing to spent money on iCloud storage and then wonder why they don’t have a proper back up. Apple should really do something about that and exclude the back up itself from the 5GB limit.

 

[vtrautia]

What if motherboard fails do you have to replace the ssd too?

how do you get dust off inside after 1-2 years?

 

[sirozha]

Considering it was a really difficult procedure to get in there anyway (quite high risk of shattering the display by all accounts) I don't think this will be a massive loss to most people... it's not like its gone from a quick couple of screws job to impossible, it's gone from definitely voiding your warranty, possibly breaking your display, and maybe electrocuting yourself to impossible!

There was no way to shutter the screen. But the process is a pain. I have just upgraded my late 2014 iMac 5K Retina with a HD replacement to SSD, screen replacement, and power supply replacement. I spent $800 and now have an i7 quad core with 32 GB RAM, 2TB SSD, and new screen (the old had a burn in image). I saved $2,000 at least compared to buying a new iMac similarly equipped. I would advise anyone to get an older iMac while waiting for the Apple Silicon one.

 

[sirozha]

They have already done this. Opening the iMac and replacing the hard drive does void the warranty, seeing as you literally have to remove the display, possibly breaking that. You guys act like much has changed, but not really. It was technically possible to upgrade the hard drive before, but it was still an absolutely ridiculously hard process. It wasn’t a walk in the park like the old Macbooks

There is no way to break the display when you remove it. Stop spreading false information.

 

[deconstruct60]

Can anyone who is saying this increases speed or security elaborate on that point?

From my perspective, you have a logic board with as bunch of traces going from one chip to another. You can either solder memory directly to that board or you can solder a connector to the traces and then plug the memory into the connector.

Can someone explain how the first method introduces any security or speed improvements that are otherwise lost in the latter?

I'm not an advocate of the soldering always "increase speed security" theory, but I don't think that "assertion" is really about how to design specifically an Apple T2 SSD.

It appears to be more wrapped up in the other major subtext that appears in many of the comments on this story's comments about commodity, replaceable SSDs in a socket versus the general T2 approach.

There are two approaches to doing a T2 implementation. Generally a "laptop" way and a "desktop Pro" way. The "desktop Pro" why still has the T2 (and the SSD controller along with the security keys) soldered to the logicboard.

The commodity approach of putting the SSD controller on the detachable card There are security gaps there. In the Mac space though that isn't really a relevant issue because the T2 attached in both approaches. Detachable opens "man in the middle" attack vectors if give physical access to the Mac internals.

Increased speed is more inexplicably hand wavy. There is perhaps some "princess and the pea" difference in shorter , less height changing traces. But highly unlikely any of that shows up to the CPU after hopping through the T2 and I/O chipset (PCH).

The current Mac Pro 2019 tech specs boast of
" Up to 3.4GB/s sequential read and 3.4GB/s sequential write performance."

Mac Pro - Technical Specifications

See all the technical specifications for Mac Pro with the M2 Ultra chip.

www.apple.com

while the MBP 16" 2019 specs boast of
" Up to3.2GB/s sequential read speed2 "

MacBook Pro

MacBook Pro laptop with M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max chips. Built for Apple Intelligence. Up to 24 hours of battery life. Liquid Retina XDR display.

www.apple.com

The Mac Pro's NAND chips are not soldered and the MBP 16's are. So much for the whole "soldered speed thing". These two systems were released about the same time with the same SSD implementation tech and the non soldered NAND approach has no problem keeping up.

There have been times where Apple laptop SSD tech moved forward faster than the desktop. ( e.g., when the Mac Pro product development is comatose for 5-6 years that isn't hard). As Apple dropped out of doing their own complete SSDs as 'cards" to going to a fully soldered approach in the laptop. It becomes relatively easy to come to the wrong causal conclusion that the soldering was a significant part of the speed increases over time. ( as opposed to better SSD controller and newer NAND tech. ).

 

[td2243]

“eco friendly” is more about the person owning the device than the device itself. If someone is going to throw out their computer when the SSD goes bad when there are companies in existence that will route that computer back to Apple for recycling (that’s quite efficient due to how they make the devices), there’s nothing that Apple can do about that. I’m sure there are piles and piles of old RAM, old CPU’s, swapped out graphics cards and SSD’s in landfills, too. All COULD be recycled, but if the folks that own them don’t want to, you can’t force ‘em.

I get what you are saying, but I was referring to Apple (the company) and their claim to be ultra focused on the environment. In reality, the practice of making products unrepairable or upgradable (to sell more products) is unquestionably NOT good for the environment.

I like Apple products and do believe they are better (at least for me) than the competition, but geez are they shady at times.