Apple receives lots of criticism for its unfriendly method to consumer repairs and upgrades; They actually cannot be accomplished. However there’s a ray of hope with the new mac mini which began delivery on Friday.
In a teardown revealed in X, ohgkg reveals that the Mac mini’s SSD is on a separate board relatively than built-in with the M4 chip.
Partial teardown of the Mac Mini M4 with 16 GB of RAM and 256 GB of SSD. Fascinating reveal (stet): Wifi chip and antenna on the again of the decrease air consumption. SSD on a daughter board. And even the essential 256GB model is available in two chips. No compromise on pace. In principle, additionally it is upgradeable by the tip consumer.
In X, L0vertodream too conscious in X a Mac mini teardown. L0vetodream claims that “in truth, it’s a 1-slot twin slot with a most particle dimension of 1TB. It makes use of a BGA315 arduous drive and the utmost replace capability could be as much as 2T” (translated).
This SSD configuration is much like that of Mac Studio, which additionally has separate SSD modules. Ars Approach factors out that Apple’s implementation is just not like that of Home windows PCs the place the SSD controller is contained with the SSD {hardware}. Apple’s SSD controller is constructed into the M-series chip. So you possibly can’t merely swap out the SSD in your Mac Studio or Mac mini for an element bought from Amazon or a pc retailer. There are different the reason why off-the-shelf components do not work, similar to the chance that Mac SSD slots have restrictions on the forms of modules that can be utilized.
However the easy proven fact that Apple cut up off the SSD leaves the chance for somebody to determine find out how to carry out an SSD improve themselves. It might contain discovering which modules can be utilized and with the ability to modify the controller, duties that aren’t simple to carry out. there’s a Kick-starter for a Mac Studio SSD improve but it surely nonetheless requires a bit work. It’s unclear if these modules will work with the Mac mini M4.
The opposite huge reveal in regards to the Mac mini SSD is that Apple makes use of two 128GB NAND chips within the 256GB SSD configuration. Within the Mac mini M2, Apple used a 256GB NAND chip, and that hinders efficiency as a result of there is no such thing as a parallel processing like there may be with two 128GB chips. With the M3, Apple switched to utilizing two 128GB chips, however the firm didn’t launch an M3 Mac mini.
Learn our in-depth evaluate of the M3 Professional Mac mini.
