New Mac Mini's Storage Can Be Upgraded, But It's Not Easy

[Chuckeee]

The basic state of affairs is Apple is not going to change their existing business model (the brings in piles of profit). Apple benefits from limiting the ability of users to upgrade their units themselves without Apple getting a cut. Apple has made this change to SSD mounting but it is explicitly designed NOT to make units easier to upgrade.

Perhaps this change is to make units more repairable. Repairability and right to repair is a popular topic. But easing the ability to make repairs in NOT the same as making things easier to upgrade. And this easy to repair argument is a bit nebulous, since SSD are not high failure prone items.

This whole updated SSD mounting might only be about improving the assembly process. Simplifying the board design, reducing the number of different board configurations that need to be manufactured and handled logistically.

 

[darngooddesign]

A business that cannot afford the Apple Delta, one would wonder about that business.

What. If you are just a person who would like to save $1200?

 

[Chuckeee]

What. If you are just a person who would like to save $1200?

Apple is an uncaring monolith. They don’t care if you want to save money. They want whatever money you have.

 

[darngooddesign]

Apple is an uncaring monolith. They don’t care if you want to save money. They want whatever money you have.

Yes, we know. Do try to follow along.

 

[npmacuser5]

What. If you are just a person who would like to save $1200?

Than one would ask, does one Need or a just Want that big of internal drive. If I needed for whatever reason, buy it from Apple. Or add an external drive or drives. I would not risk hacking a precision system. Plus a person just eliminated any chance of a trade-in. Just an opinion, do what one wants.

 

[dukebound85]

I update my first post in this thread to reflect this, but here is what was just discovered about a major limitation by Apple if you Boot off an external drive as your Startup Drive on your Mac:

WARNING I was not aware of previously: If you boot off an external Startup Drive with your Mac, due to Apple's New Security, you can NOT run Apple Intelligence, and likely Apple Pay, and other security related things from your external Thunderbolt or SSD drive. See this video from a guy who just discovered this limitation:

Thanks to gargetfreak98 for this potential workaround of moving your home folder to the external SSD drive:

How to move the Home Directory in macOS Ventura

In macOS Ventura you can move your user's Home directory to a larger or faster external drive. Here's how.

appleinsider.com

I believe this will get you around that limitation

GitHub - Kyle-Ye/XcodeLLMEligible

Contribute to Kyle-Ye/XcodeLLMEligible development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

 

[seek3r]

The basic state of affairs is Apple is not going to change their existing business model (the brings in piles of profit). Apple benefits from limiting the ability of users to upgrade their units themselves without Apple getting a cut. Apple has made this change to SSD mounting but it is explicitly designed NOT to make units easier to upgrade.

Perhaps this change is to make units more repairable. Repairability and right to repair is a popular topic. But easing the ability to make repairs in NOT the same as making things easier to upgrade. And this easy to repair argument is a bit nebulous, since SSD are not high failure prone items.

This whole updated SSD mounting might only be about improving the assembly process. Simplifying the board design, reducing the number of different board configurations that need to be manufactured and handled logistically.

Outside of the fan, the SSD is probably the most failure prone component in the machine…

 

[Chuckeee]

Outside of the fan, the SSD is probably the most failure prone component in the machine…

I would suspect PSU failures and broken connectors are a much more common failure occurrences than SSD.

 

[majkom]

Than one would ask, does one Need or a just Want that big of internal drive. If I needed for whatever reason, buy it from Apple. Or add an external drive or drives. I would not risk hacking a precision system. Plus a person just eliminated any chance of a trade-in. Just an opinion, do what one wants.

How exactly this would eliminate trade in? I doubt that anyone doing trade in disassemble the machine to check if nands are original or not.

 

[cjsuk]

Outside of the fan, the SSD is probably the most failure prone component in the machine…

It's probably not. The power supply components first, then the MLCC caps dotted throughout it. The SSD will likely outlive all of them unless you spend all day writing to it, which is unlikely.

The MLCC caps have already been a bit of an issue on the M1 iMacs. They get thermal cycled and as they are basically thin sandwich of ceramic and deposited metal, they crack and the layers short out. This causes the power supply to get pulled low through the short and shut down (or nuke them which is increasingly common in rock bottom quality engineering). They are a pain to find as well without a micro-ohmmeter.

This is an annoyingly persistent thing. I've had to spend a lot of the last 30 odd years excavating first shorted tantalum caps, then the radial ceramics, now these sods. Some of the older equipment requires a lot of disassembly to find the things. I spent I think 11 hours finding one inside a Tektronix spectrum analyser a few years back.

Another one ... mmm crispy tants.

Anyway back to the original point, I suspect the only reason Apple did this is that it means they have to keep less SKUs at hand.

 

[npmacuser5]

How exactly this would eliminate trade in? I doubt that anyone doing trade in disassemble the machine to check if nands are original or not.

They are very good at checking for everything on trade-ins. First, check the model number. The orginal model number has specs. Second open disk utility, the disk information there. Does either of the above differ from Apple; yes, no. These are just the simple tools, they have more advanced ones.

 

[npmacuser5]

The basic state of affairs is Apple is not going to change their existing business model (the brings in piles of profit). Apple benefits from limiting the ability of users to upgrade their units themselves without Apple getting a cut. Apple has made this change to SSD mounting but it is explicitly designed NOT to make units easier to upgrade.

Perhaps this change is to make units more repairable. Repairability and right to repair is a popular topic. But easing the ability to make repairs in NOT the same as making things easier to upgrade. And this easy to repair argument is a bit nebulous, since SSD are not high failure prone items.

This whole updated SSD mounting might only be about improving the assembly process. Simplifying the board design, reducing the number of different board configurations that need to be manufactured and handled logistically.

Apple provides very good support. If one allows the consumer to hack away, definitely compromise that support. I would not be surprised if Apple refused Apple Care on a modified system. Add, other areas needing support, Apple may also refuse to repair of a modified system. Not unique to Apple, vast majority of products have similar policies for modified products.

 

[mlayer]

The prevailing narratives about the Mac mini are that the base model is an excellent value but like most Apple products suffers from the Apple tax with upgrades. I'm curious why no attention is being paid to the $999 model with the M4/24 GB RAM/512 GB SSD. It seems like a good compromise of value and future proofing without costing as much as two base models. Another $400 nets the M4 Pro with its benefits. Sure I'd like Apple to charge only $100 for its Mac BTO memory/storage options, but that ship sailed long ago.

 

[seek3r]

Than one would ask, does one Need or a just Want that big of internal drive. If I needed for whatever reason, buy it from Apple. Or add an external drive or drives. I would not risk hacking a precision system. Plus a person just eliminated any chance of a trade-in. Just an opinion, do what one wants.

You know if you swapped the module you could always swap it *back*, right?

 

[npmacuser5]

You know if you swapped the module you could always swap it *back*, right?

My time is worth more then what you proposed.

 

[tubular]

I'm curious why no attention is being paid to the $999 model with the M4/24 GB RAM/512 GB SSD.

It’s a good point. The base models are usually good values, and if you kick it upstairs a step, you still have a computer worth buying. It’s only when you try to go for 1tb+ storage or more RAM that the whole package value starts to turn against you.

 

[seek3r]

My time is worth more then what you proposed.

Then the trade-in value doesnt matter and your whole point is silly

 

[GraXXoR]

You won't be at all sad once your new Mac arrives. My cMP 5,1 12 core has been booted exactly twice since I bought my M1 Mac Studio 2.5 years ago.

PS: Both of those cMP boots were to facilitate data transfer to the Apple Silicon machine...

CMP?

 

[adamw]

Here is a new video to help you use your External Drive to move your Home folder to, to allow Apple Intelligence to work properly. Save money by using an external drive to expand your SSD storage for a base storage M4 Mac mini or other Mac with a small internal SSD drive:

 

[RumorChaser]

Then if Apple did want to retaliate (and note, this is speculation) they could do it via the ever-mutable, one-sided T&Cs of "approved Apple service providers" or even users' Apple IDs. Which brings us to...

You made some good points. I'm surprised Apple isn't already putting up some of the hurdles. Like they did with touch IDs. They could easily store an identifier on the NAND chip and machine firmware that has to be signed at manufacturing or at certified repair shops.

 

[theluggage]

You made some good points. I'm surprised Apple isn't already putting up some of the hurdles. Like they did with touch IDs. They could easily store an identifier on the NAND chip and machine firmware that has to be signed at manufacturing or at certified repair shops.

I don't think they'll react to a few DIYers or small concerns or offering upgrades by soldering in new chips - it looks too time consuming and risky to be viable large-scale, and Apple would be risking the Streisand Effect. The crunch would come if someone started making and selling replacement modules in larger quantities.

 

[tubular]

Perhaps this change is to make units more repairable.

This could be the aftermath of the hard lesson of the butterfly keyboards. That fiasco was more expensive to Apple than it needed to be because they had completely abandoned repairability on the MacBooks, meaning that they were stuck swapping out much much more than just the keyboards every time one went belly up. Maybe they started seeing the value of internal modularity, not as upgrades but as a way for less expensive repairs.

 

[tenthousandthings]

I know this article is about upgrading the storage directly on the modules, but the “replaceable but not upgradeable” tier for the Mac Studio just seems bizarre to me. It’s great that the M4 Mac mini now has that, it’s a big step up from “not replaceable.” But the Mac Pro uses similar modules that are “replaceable and upgradeable” — I gather they can’t be used in the Mac Studio, but I’m not sure why not:

Apple 2TB SSD Upgrade Kit for Mac Pro

The SSD kit for Mac Pro enables you to upgrade the internal SSD storage capacity of yourMac Pro. Installation required. Buy now at apple.com.

www.apple.com

Surely it is folly to hope that the M4 Mac Studio will also get a bump up, from the “replaceable but not upgradeable” tier to the “replaceable and upgradeable” tier?

 

[adamw]

A review of the OWC Thunderbolt 5 Envoy Ultra SSD drive. Seems impressive for those needing the speed of a Thunderbolt 5 SSD External drive to supplement their internal SSD storage:

OWC Thunderbolt 5 SSD gets first review, and yes, it can reach 48Gbps — making it the fastest single-drive portable SSD that you can buy

Great performance and pricing make the Envoy Ultra Thunderbolt 5 portable SSD an attractive choice

www.techradar.com

 

[RumorChaser]

The prevailing narratives about the Mac mini are that the base model is an excellent value but like most Apple products suffers from the Apple tax with upgrades. I'm curious why no attention is being paid to the $999 model with the M4/24 GB RAM/512 GB SSD. It seems like a good compromise of value and future proofing without costing as much as two base models. Another $400 nets the M4 Pro with its benefits. Sure I'd like Apple to charge only $100 for its Mac BTO memory/storage options, but that ship sailed long ago.

If you were buying directly from Apple you should definitely go with any 256GB option. There is no reason to go with 512GB for a desktop computer where you can attach permanent external storage. $200 almost buys you a 2TB drive and a TB4 enclosure. An M4/24/256 would save you $200 or an M4/32/256 would get you extra RAM if you need it.

The only reason to go with M4/24/512 is because it is not BTO. That means Apple sell them in bulk through retailers such as Amazon, who may at some point discount them to way less than $999.