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flyingmanatee

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 7, 2014
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Oregon
Two years ago MacRumors reported that the M1 Mac SSD upgrades are possible

However, I haven't seen any other confirmation or anyone who's even attempted this, let alone on newer M2 Macs. At this point I'm starting to question if it was even real? Anyone know of any more evidence of this (No I'm not itching to disassemble my Mac, just curious)
 
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Bottom line is while the studio has replaceable storage modules, and with a bit of fussing, you can replace like sized modules, you cannot upgrade your studio, i.e., Apple purposely blocked owners from upgrading

As Linus put it "They specifically go out of their way to prevent you from doing it on the Mac Studio"
 
They don't call this forum MacRumors for nothing. But we can dream....that one day we can again self-upgrade our stuff, like the 2011 MBP I still have that came with 4GB RAM and 500GB HDD, but now has 16GB RAM and 2TB hybrid drive.

In the meantime I just a 2TB Samsung T7 external with my M1 Air. It feels about as fast as the internal 256GB SSD, and it's the size of a credit card so it barely gets in the way. And it (the Samsung) only cost €300.
 
According to one of MR users, LTT video is not correct and changing the SSD on Studio is indeed possible, but requires low-level configuration and correct NAND setup: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/upgrading-mac-studio-storage.2370048/

Regarding @flyingmanatee's question: I am not aware of anyone replicating SSD replacement on an AS laptop. However, based on the available information I do believe that it is "possible", at least, in some academical sense. You'd need to make sure that you use compatible, correctly configured NAND modules, don't botch the soldering job, and then reconfigure the Mac using Apple Configurator. Of course, this doesn't make SSDs upgradeable in any practical sense of the word.

Apple purposely blocked owners from upgrading

As Linus put it "They specifically go out of their way to prevent you from doing it on the Mac Studio"

That's a very one-sided interpretation. I don't think that Apple goes out of their way to prevent user upgrades. Upgradeability is simply not a concern for them. They design these things so that it fits their production workflow, not to prevent the user from doing anything. If they really went out of their way, they'd pair the SSD using some sort of cryptographic method, but that's not what we see.
 
That's a very one-sided interpretation. I don't think that Apple goes out of their way to prevent user upgrades. Upgradeability is simply not a concern for them. They design these things so that it fits their production workflow, not to prevent the user from doing anything. If they really went out of their way, they'd pair the SSD using some sort of cryptographic method, but that's not what we see.

I also don't think that Apple are going out of their way to spite their users by designing their products the way they are now. It's not like they are hiding it, that you buy an Apple product somehow thinking you can self-upgrade only to later discover you can't.

I've gotten used to the lack of CD on the newer laptops and the lack of 3.5mm jack on the iPhone. I now use Apple Music and BT headphones. I've also gotten over the fact I cannot upgrade my M1's SSD nor RAM. I'll just make do with 8GB RAM, and external SSD's, the latter being very easily replaceable.

Life's too short to fret these kinds of things.
 
That's a very one-sided interpretation. I don't think that Apple goes out of their way to prevent user upgrades.
Perhaps, but They're the ones that fight tooth and nail against the right to repair, they're the ones that purposely disabled faceid/touchid if someone other then Apple opened up their phones. True they begrudgenly opened up a self repair process for their phones, but as others on YT shown, its done in such a way that its generally more expensive.

So yes, my interpretation may very well be one sided but its backup by years of anti-consumer behavior by Apple.

Upgradeability is simply not a concern for them.
Its pretty clear that this goes beyond not a concern or not part of their workflow and explicit steps to prevent consumers from upgrading the property they own
 
I also don't think that Apple are going out of their way to spite their users by designing their products the way they are now. It's not like they are hiding it, that you buy an Apple product somehow thinking you can self-upgrade only to later discover you can't.

I've gotten used to the lack of CD on the newer laptops and the lack of 3.5mm jack on the iPhone. I now use Apple Music and BT headphones. I've also gotten over the fact I cannot upgrade my M1's SSD nor RAM. I'll just make do with 8GB RAM, and external SSD's, the latter being very easily replaceable.

Life's too short to fret these kinds of things.
Not being able to upgrade has other implications. If your M1 internal SSD dies the machine is a brick even if you have a bucket of external SSDs because of how Apple designed the boot process. You might not care but from an e-waste perspective it's pretty bad. Five to ten years from now there will be a stack of useless Macs that otherwise would have been good with a $30 SSD replacement.

There's very little reason they couldn't have included industry standard M.2 slots and in some machines like the M1 Mac Mini that's half empty with oodles of room it's pretty inexcusable. They KNOW that soldered storage and memory will make them more money at time of purchase and that underequipping base models will hasten upgrades.
 
Not being able to upgrade has other implications. If your M1 internal SSD dies the machine is a brick even if you have a bucket of external SSDs because of how Apple designed the boot process. You might not care but from an e-waste perspective it's pretty bad. Five to ten years from now there will be a stack of useless Macs that otherwise would have been good with a $30 SSD replacement.

There's very little reason they couldn't have included industry standard M.2 slots and in some machines like the M1 Mac Mini that's half empty with oodles of room it's pretty inexcusable. They KNOW that soldered storage and memory will make them more money at time of purchase and that underequipping base models will hasten upgrades.

And yet we keep buying their stuff, when we just know they are up to no good and don't give single flying duck about the climate...
 
Perhaps, but They're the ones that fight tooth and nail against the right to repair, they're the ones that purposely disabled faceid/touchid if someone other then Apple opened up their phones. True they begrudgenly opened up a self repair process for their phones, but as others on YT shown, its done in such a way that its generally more expensive.

So yes, my interpretation may very well be one sided but its backup by years of anti-consumer behavior by Apple.

Apple's opposition to right to repair is a well known fact. Whether it constitutes anti-consumer behavior is a matter of interpretation and personal stance. This is a very interesting discussion on its own, but is probably not appropriate in the context of this thread.

What I am trying to say is that Linus's interpretation assume that there is specific malicious intent behind these design decisions. But this is an additional assumption which is not necessary to explain or understand these decisions. If I am giving you a sandwich with butter it's not because I go out of my way to prevent you from putting cottage cheese on it instead. It's just that I want to make a sandwich with butter and speading the butter directly onto the bread is the simplest option for me. It didn't even cross my mind that you might want it with cottage cheese instead and if you tell me about your right of having your bread with whatever you want I will probably just shrug. Can you accuse me of malicious intent in this scenario?

Not being able to upgrade has other implications. If your M1 internal SSD dies the machine is a brick even if you have a bucket of external SSDs because of how Apple designed the boot process. You might not care but from an e-waste perspective it's pretty bad. Five to ten years from now there will be a stack of useless Macs that otherwise would have been good with a $30 SSD replacement.

I think you might be overdramatising this a bit. First, how can you know that there will indeed be a stack of useless Macs? Apple has been shipping on-replaceable SSDs since 2012, and it doesn't seem like it has exasperated the e-waste issue. But what's most relevant, do you think that there is indeed a substantial enough amount of users who would continue to use the computer with an external SSD or even replace the failed drive? My experience is very different. The majority would just get a new computer once their SSD goes. Hell, people don't even replace the battery on their iPhones, but get a new one instead!

What you say makes a lot of sense in the context of options. The way how Apple designs these things certainly removes the option of prolonging the lifespan of the machine. And I fully acknowledge that there are users who would prefer to have these options and I respect their opinion. Frankly, I too would prefer if the SSD were replaceable and SSD upgrades were a reality (if not by user than at least by Apple). But I don't think it is correct or appropriate to frame these kinds of wishes in the context of environment or e-waste.


There's very little reason they couldn't have included industry standard M.2 slots and in some machines like the M1 Mac Mini that's half empty with oodles of room it's pretty inexcusable. They KNOW that soldered storage and memory will make them more money at time of purchase and that underequipping base models will hasten upgrades.

This is certainly part of their business model, yes. But there are also some valid technical reasons not to use M.2 SSDs. Power consumption, protocol optimisation, reliability (no third-party firmware with unclear behavior)... For example, Apple SSDs correctly implement data flush operations, while many consumer SSDs lose data even after confirming that the data has been written. M.2 SSDs have their own RAM for caching, while Apple can use the system RAM, improving power consumption and performance in certain situations. And so on.

Do these advantages outweigh the loss of upgradeability and repairability? That's a different question which probably cannot be answered generally. As I said, I'd prefer if all NAND on Apple Silicon was replaceable and if Apple offered a NAND upgrade/replacement service (either in shop or via their self-repair program).
 
It seems to me that security is the more plausible reason behind it.


I took apart and upgraded nearly every one of my first dozen or so Macs (going back to 1994 through the pre-retina MacBooks). Now I treat them like iPhones - if the one I have no longer serves my needs (which are higher than most), I sell and move on.

Also...taking apart modern electronics (the last decade or so) is about as much fun as a root canal. Special screwdrivers, spudgers, guitar picks, glue, paste, tape, delicate ribbons. Blech...I'll go find something in the house to fix.
 
I think you might be overdramatising this a bit. First, how can you know that there will indeed be a stack of useless Macs? Apple has been shipping on-replaceable SSDs since 2012, and it doesn't seem like it has exasperated the e-waste issue. But what's most relevant, do you think that there is indeed a substantial enough amount of users who would continue to use the computer with an external SSD or even replace the failed drive? My experience is very different. The majority would just get a new computer once their SSD goes. Hell, people don't even replace the battery on their iPhones, but get a new one instead!

What you say makes a lot of sense in the context of options. The way how Apple designs these things certainly removes the option of prolonging the lifespan of the machine. And I fully acknowledge that there are users who would prefer to have these options and I respect their opinion. Frankly, I too would prefer if the SSD were replaceable and SSD upgrades were a reality (if not by user than at least by Apple). But I don't think it is correct or appropriate to frame these kinds of wishes in the context of environment or e-waste.
How do I know there will be stack of useless Macs? Because we already know that if the SSD on an Apple Silicon Mac is dead the machine is dead. More SSDs are going to fail over time. That's just what happens. The secondhand market for Macs is very strong and resellers will fix up old machines sourced from e-waste recyclers or individuals to sell on eBay and other places. Even if the original owner goes out and buys a new machine the minute the SSD dies, the old machine is useless to resellers or somebody else because nobody is going to spend hours sourcing specific components and doing board level soldering to fix a 5-10 year Mac worth a few hundred. It's just not economical. The only thing those machines will be good for is parts but even then Apple makes it hard to use them anywhere but the original machine...

And only with Apple Silicon did the machines refuse to boot off external drives. Plus they didn't start soldering drives down until the 2015 MacBook.
 
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Two years ago MacRumors reported that the M1 Mac SSD upgrades are possible

However, I haven't seen any other confirmation or anyone who's even attempted this, let alone on newer M2 Macs. At this point I'm starting to question if it was even real? Anyone know of any more evidence of this (No I'm not itching to disassemble my Mac, just curious)
In much the same way, while it may be absolutely “real” that someone can walk from Los Angeles to New York, it’s just not practical. Given enough time/money/skill, there’s a wide swath of things that are “possible” as long as the goal is “one-off tech demo intended to drive lots of clicks/views/money to me”.
 
Bottom line is while the studio has replaceable storage modules, and with a bit of fussing, you can replace like sized modules, you cannot upgrade your studio, i.e., Apple purposely blocked owners from upgrading

As Linus put it "They specifically go out of their way to prevent you from doing it on the Mac Studio"

Makes me wonder if with the Apple Silicon Mac Pro they're going to announce proprietary upgrade modules
 
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Makes me wonder if with the Apple Silicon Mac Pro they're going to announce proprietary upgrade modules
Apple is all about being proprietary, so yes, I'd say its going to be fairly locked down, so that if there is going to be some upgradability offered, its only going to be through them.
 
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If you have the correct NAND flash chips you can desolder the old chips and upgrade them. You just need Apple Configurator on another Mac to complete the upgrade.

With regards to the Mac Studio you have a "master" and "slave" NAND flash board that need to be inserted in the correct slots and then also use Apple Configurator on another Mac to restore it.
 
Apple is all about being proprietary, so yes, I'd say its going to be fairly locked down, so that if there is going to be some upgradability offered, its only going to be through them.

Well not ideal, better than nothing.

Microsoft does the same crap with the Xbox Series X/S where you can only upgrade the SSD through approved Microsoft upgrade modules, versus the PS5 that accepts pretty much any M.2 SSD

Seagate-Xbox-expansion-card-inserted.jpg
 
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Makes me wonder if with the Apple Silicon Mac Pro they're going to announce proprietary upgrade modules

The main storage will likely be proprietary (or maybe even non-upgradeable), but I'm certain that there will be PCI-e expansion that will offer various options.
 
The main storage will likely be proprietary (or maybe even non-upgradeable), but I'm certain that there will be PCI-e expansion that will offer various options.

And of course external thunderbolt drives are always an option. Since it's a desktop it's not going anywhere so you can get away with permanently plugging a thunderbolt drive into one of the many USB-C ports you got
 
Microsoft does the same crap
Yep, not limited to the Xbox. Their surface line is a prime example. The tablet/laptops are glued shut in many respects.
And of course external thunderbolt drives are always an option
I think that's a mistake, even Apple admitted the lack of expansion of the trash can was a mistake. I'm hoping they don't return to those days. Of course, this actually has zero impact on me - the current MBPs are at the top end of what I'm willing to pay, never mind a Mac Pro. So I'm basically a spectator in the roll out of a new Mac Pro
 
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