cicalinarrot
macrumors 65816
Hope there will be adapters.
Frankly, the fact that it's replaceable is enough to me to make it a great value, and I'm a Mac lover who stopped recommending Macs to friends after they started soldering everything.
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New Mac Mini Has Modular Storage, 256GB Model Will Have Faster SSD
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Frankly, the fact that it's replaceable is enough to me to make it a great value, and I'm a Mac lover who stopped recommending Macs to friends after they started soldering everything.
VisceralRealist
macrumors 65816
Now all we need is for them to stop wasting their time and resources on those stupid goggles 😁
(In all seriousness, I don't think Apple is quite the zero sum game we imagine it to be).
pksv
Suspended
We've had years of Apple Studio and still no adapters. A proprietary Apple chip controller is on the board, it looks like it can't be bypassed. You can reball the NAND chips though, which is still a good thing when compared to the previous mini.
I think the richest company in the world can do more things at once 😉
Certainly good news and all, but wasn’t this going to be obvious since they already corrected it, as the article indicated, in the switch from M2 chips to M3 ones in the Airs. Not like Apple would go backwards would they? Would they? 😉
What? Give up the $400 upgrade profits? $400 upgrade price minus $50 1 TB NVME plus the $20 credit for 256 GB NVME they didn't use and we have $370 of pure profit, half to the shareholders and half to Tim's superyacht fund. (It might be a Gulfstream fund, but whatever.)
cicalinarrot
macrumors 65816
Not sure how many Studio they've sold but maybe the Mini will justify third party manufacturers to find an alternative with "magic" adapters or clones? Let me have some hope! 😀 But again, not having to replace the MOBO for an SSD is great anyway.
BTW I used to repair iPhones and swapped NANDs, I'd never recommend that for upgrades, just repair attempts and when parts are inexpensive.
2242 or 2230 SSDs if the regular 2280 is too large
If Apple's SSD implementation is really that spectacular, it will only increase their potential market (PC enthusiasts will buy it) if an SSD with their controller is made available for purchase.
MagicBoy
macrumors 601
deaglecat
macrumors 6502a
True...many of the big name reviews are largely "new content free". Almost as if Apple has given them the same talking points as in the official launch videos.
Yes, a Time Machine backup drive on a standard NVME. And it would save a USB port too.
No, but the fact that they’re using two 128GB chips rather than one 256GB one as in the M2s is fairly significant.
While the module is removable, it's not just a proprietary connector that an adapter might be able to convert. The module itself may be missing the controller (part of the CPU SoC) so literally nothing we currently know of that exists today will "convert".
Couldn't be bothered or the standard wasn't set yet?
From Wikipedia;
"The SATA revision 3.2 specification, in its gold revision as of August 2013, standardizes M.2 as a new format for storage devices and specifies its hardware layout."
Was the standard in place long enough ahead of the 2014 Mac Minis to get it into the supply line? The 2012 mini had dual SATA connectors. The hazards of being an early adapter includes bleeding a bit on the sharp edges.
If you look at the module closely, you'd see the connector is nothing like a current standard nvme m.2 connector.
Gnattu
macrumors 65816
OKay let me say it again in this one. The removable part is not an SSD and does not work as the SSD. It is the NAND part of the SSD and the nvme controller in inside the M4 SoC itself, which means it is technically impossible to make an adapter to use normal nvme ssd at all. This also limits the maximum capacity you can have with the chip as the the M4's internal controller seems can only handle 2TB at max, that would be you maximum capacity even though 3rd party modules are available in the future, and you still need to get at least Pro to have even the potential to support 8TB. Replacing this module is equivalent to replacing the nand on an SSD and you need to go over complicated steps like using DFU to reconfigure your Mac so that the internal controller can properly work with the larger NAND, and such process will have a huge change to void your warranty due to unauthorized modification.
One good news for people who want to do upgrades at home is that the NANDs are exactly the same as we seen on iPhones and iPads, which ships in huge quantities, so if the demand is really strong we could see the modules being made from recycled iPhone NANDs. And no, you cannot use random NANDs because all NANDs used with Apple's own NVMe controllers are special NANDs that customized by Apple and cannot be used by anyone else.
Storage sucks on the new SoC Macs. I've upgraded RAM maybe once on one of my computers, so inflexible RAM is not quite as heinous, but I constantly up the hardware capacity of my computers. When we replaced our MacBook Air with an M1, that bit me hard. Less a year later I sold the M1 Air and rebought a model with quadruple the hard drive capacity when I realized I couldn't upgrade storage capacity. It sucks. The old MacBook Air I had replaced I had changed out the hard drive 3 times, it was great.
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"The criticism surrounding Apple's decision to use a single 256GB chip in some base-model Macs a few years ago primarily came from a vocal contingent of tech enthusiasts, and the average customer is unlikely to even notice the slower speeds in common day-to-day tasks."
Isn’t this always the case with Apple products? That vocal contingent is regularly disappointed, underwhelmed, sad, followed by “I’ll pass”.
Isn’t this always the case with Apple products? That vocal contingent is regularly disappointed, underwhelmed, sad, followed by “I’ll pass”.
pksv
Suspended
I have the same hopes, there will be a much bigger market with $599 starting price. And as you said: a lot easier to take a risk on a replaceable SSD chip than on a whole MOBO. I for one would happily take that risk.
Apple Fan 2008
macrumors 68000
Thank goodness, I was about to get a 256gb model and hoped this would be the case.
Spock
Contributor
Not when they can charge insane amounts for storage upgrades.
It is good news in that a failed SSD module can now be fixed without tossing the whole logic board.
Just don't get your hopes up that it means affordable, third-party storage updates for the Mini. It's not M.2 compatible, even with an adapter (arguably, there 's an efficiency gain with Apple's approach of having the SSD controller embedded in the processor rather than the SSD module), Apple will only officially supply you with a like-for-like replacement module of the same capacity and you need a second Mac with the official Apple configurator App to complete the replacement.
Apple could allow upgrades if they wanted but don't hold your breath - they've been using this system since th 2019 Mac Pro which I believe does have official upgrades by Apple engineers - but at sky-high prices. The Mac Studio has also used this system since day 1 and there is no sign of storage upgrades - official or otherwise.
They gave us Thunderbolt 5. Bring your own NVME.
Sophisticatednut
macrumors 68030
Sadly it doesn’t even make sense in the MacBooks.
If a random nobody can make something this elegant of a solution then Apple isn’t spending enough RnD on their products for consumer benefits.