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New Mac Mini Has Modular Storage, 256GB Model Will Have Faster SSD

lkrupp said:
Isn’t this always the case with Apple products? That vocal contingent is regularly disappointed, underwhelmed, sad, followed by “I’ll pass”.
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Yes, and yet they stay with Apple decades after decades like a dysfunctional family relation.
 
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Alameda said:
That's... not good at all.

I just downloaded it an ran it on my M1 MacBook Pro:

The top-line numbers were 7005 and 4932. The numbers you have are worse than my external Thunderbolt SSD. I ran the SSD drive twice: Once directly attached to the Mac, and once attached to my OWC Thunderbolt hub.
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I performed black magic speed tests on my base 256GB M4 mini and 512GB M2 mini earlier today and the M2 had 2x the read speed and 1.5x the write speed. Not sure where these reports of decent speeds on the 256GB M4 are coming from.
 
shrubberyuk said:
I performed black magic speed tests on my base 256GB M4 mini and 512GB M2 mini earlier today and the M2 had 2x the read speed and 1.5x the write speed. Not sure where these reports of decent speeds on the 256GB M4 are coming from.
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I get different numbers with Black Magic as well. But my Amorphous speed report is WAY higher on my MacBook Pro than it is on that Mac Mini M4, and that makes no sense to me.
 
Alameda said:
I get different numbers with Black Magic as well. But my Amorphous speed report is WAY higher on my MacBook Pro than it is on that Mac Mini M4, and that makes no sense to me.
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The speeds that I am getting from the 256GB M4 mini are what I would expect from a single NAND chip whereas those from my 512GB M2 mini are what I would expect from two chips (which it has) and those from my 512GB M1pro MBP are what I would expect from four chips (which it has). Basically it appears to me from testing that the base M4 mini does in fact only have one NAND chip contrary to this story.
 
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I can’t believe how much you guys post on a Mac site and dont know too much. Here, upgrading the ram on a Studio with the same NANDs etc:

 
cicalinarrot said:
Do it, go with base model, it's an incredible deal now that the SSD is repairable. It gets worse if you upgrade components.
I went from 2015 MacBook Pro to M1 Mac Mini and the performance gap was absurd. I absolutely mistreat that thing and never have to worry. The M4 must be a beast.
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Just picked one up in store on the way home. $499… can’t resist that. Haven’t fired it up yet but will later tonight. I probably won’t have a huge performance wow factor since I use a M3 Pro 16” MBP at work, but just carrying that small of a box out of the store knowing how capable and tiny it is made me happy. I also have an iPad mini 7 and would buy an iPhone mini if they still made them up to date. I just love small tech I guess 😆
 
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hans1972 said:
Yes, and yet they stay with Apple decades after decades like a dysfunctional family relation.
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Same old story every time. The main character complains about how much his home sucks and how he hates his family, leaves home to travel the world, only to realise that there's no place like home when he sees all the problems elsewhere.

The problem isn't so much Apple, but the reluctance to acknowledge that very often in life, we can't have it all. Every choice has a cost. You want the benefits of Apple Silicon, superior build quality and the integrated ecosystem? Be prepared to pay more.

The ball is in your court.
 
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Finally testing mine out. Dang! That's not bad.
 
Disk... could be better, could be worse? Seems to be on par with M3 MBA models, so nothing surprising here. Total beast of a machine for $499!

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Gnattu said:
This is what it needs to be done if you really want to do it:

- Reverse engineer the Apple's wire protocol
- Make a Small IC to translate normal NAND protocol to this Apple specific one, or basically a simper SSD controller
- And make the module still small enough and make sure the total power consumption does not exceed Apples' limit

So yes, if you insist there is a way, there is always a way. The problem is just that nobody want to do that if you can just buy recycled iPhone NANDs cheap
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I don't think any of that is needed at all. It just needs to be a module that uses the same type of NAND chips that Apple uses. If the mini is a success, there will be an incentive for companies to sell such modules.
 
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CWallace said:
The modules would require the chassis to be thicker and heavier and while some of us tech tinkerer nerds may not care, a significant portion of the MacBook Pro customer base very much does.
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Not true, the Surface Pro is doing it and it’s thinner than a MBP.
 
Even if the NAND chips cannot be replaced with a standard NVME and even if Apple sold “official” NAND chips that could be replaced and upgraded at their absurd pricing, it would be nice to have the option to upgrade storage after the purchase. What you buy, storage wise, may be enough today, but you may outgrow that in 2 years.

Or replace the NAND chips when they fail.
 
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The base configuration ssd speed is abysmally slow in comparison to M2. External thunderbolt ssd is much faster than that.
Lokkison said:
I can’t believe how much you guys post on a Mac site and dont know too much. Here, upgrading the ram on a Studio with the same NANDs etc:

Click to expand...

No offense to the person in the video, but his experience and skill level clearly don’t match up to that of some Chinese technicians. Even in his latest video where he tried to upgrade the base M4 mac mini, he failed to upgrade the ssd to 2TB.

This is understandable, as China’s vast supply of spare parts and numerous third-party Mac repair shops provide more opportunities to build the expertise needed for complex upgrades. For instance, Ezfix who is one of China’s most renowned Mac repair shops, has already successfully upgraded the base Mac to 2TB without relying on custom PCB replacement boards or additional costly components—just pure skill. The YouTube video is linked below

Here is the before and after upgrade speed from the video.

before.png
after.png
 
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16GB RAM, 10 core base CPU, upgradeable storage. Same price as before. I think Apple lost their mind. Tim Apple is so going to fire the engineers who designed this.
 
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germinator said:
same type of NAND chips that Apple uses
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That is what I said at the first, I was just explaining why you cannot just take a random NAND and put it in. Plus Apple uses custom NAND that no one else is using and cannot be used by anyone else, so the availability is ultimately limited by Apple orders. I don’t know if third part can even direct order such NAND from vendors directly or not, probably not, and has to source them from places like recycled iPhone
 
Modular storage is very wellcome change to Mac mini. You don't have to throw away the whole logic board computer if the SSD dies. Now Apple or some 3rd party can provide you new ssd if your SSD dies. Apple should make this change to Macbooks too.
 
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