Louis Rossmann on the Mac Studio SSD "Scandal"

[theluggage]

I haven't seen one, but I expect that it's a LOT more accessible than the ones in the Studio.

The Studio isn't that inaccessible - if you look at the second Max tech video, where the guy knew what he was doing, he had the cards out in a jiffy. Since it would have to be an official Apple upgrade it might be "authorised service agents only" on the pretext that stupid people might lick the power supply - but I think that was an option with the iMac Pro.

(I think it's kinda a lame excuse - third parties have been selling RAM upgrades for Macs with exposed internal power supplies since forever, even back in the CRT days when there was 15kV floating around long after the power was disconnected, without getting sued into the stone age every time someone won a Darwin award, and if it's that easy to fry yourself, it's just bad design as Apple are putting even qualified service techs at risk. Any future "right to repair" legislation better take that into consideration, or it's going to be trivial for companies to dodge )

 

[F-Train]

... it might be "authorised service agents only" on the pretext that stupid people might lick the power supply - but I think that was an option with the iMac Pro.

(I think it's kinda a lame excuse - third parties have been selling RAM upgrades for Macs with exposed internal power supplies since forever

One of Luke Miani's specific allegations in his video criticising Apple over user upgrade of Mac Studio storage is that the computer's internals are electrically dangerous. See 4:10:

 

[laptech]

So does this mean Apple has designed a totally new memory module that is in the same design as M.2 ssd's? because SSD's have the controller chip on the SSD itself but here people are saying the SSD controller is now part of the motherboard and what appears to be an SSD is actually just raw memory.

So this is Apples way of providing storage but without the necessary controller chips. That would be akin to hard drives having no pcb on them because all the HDD controller chips are on the motherboard, the HDD would just be a metal box with the raw storage in them. An interesting concept because all we've ever known is hard drives (2.5, 3.5, SSD) to have the HDD controllers as part of the drive be it IDE, SCSI or SATA

 

[bobcomer]

Apple also stated that modularity was a big thing for the Studio, yet, it apparently wasn't the case for their internal SSD's.. So modularity in Apples ears means ports, which again means that a MacBook Pro is also modular, which I find quite strange and a stretch of terms.

Their "Modularity" is the monitor isn't part of the computer, and neither is extra storage.

 

[bobcomer]

The Mac Pro is a tower computer. In his review of the Mac Studio, Dave Lee says that for its power it is far and away the most compact computer he has seen. Ease of transport is one of its selling features.

And I'm sure I'm going to like the Studio, compact and fast is all I need.

But I'm not going to open it up.

Really why I commented is that the Mac Pro, being easily accessible, that's why Apple made SSD upgrade kits, and the job of a Pro kind of requires upgrades. I don't think Apple thinks the Studio is anything like that.

 

[bobcomer]

on the pretext that stupid people might lick the power supply

LOL! What an image!

The power supply doesn't really bother me, I know how to handle those, but all those screws and parts. I'm just not going to open it up, it's just not worth it. I'll buy new if I absolutely have to.

Any future "right to repair" legislation better take that into consideration, or it's going to be trivial for companies to dodge )

I definitely agree.

 

[ct2k7]

How many people are transporting these things on a regular basis? I don't know any peers who purchased the Mac Pro wheels.

 

[F-Train]

How many people are transporting these things on a regular basis?

People who move between residences, which includes people who have a vacation home and a lot of students. For me, the fact that I can fit a Mac Studio in an airplane overhead bin is very attractive.

 

[cpnotebook80]

You can hold out forever and never purchase anything to avoid getting "locked in"

I've obtained whatever was needed from Apple for my personal and business needs going on 20+ years and made a better than anticipated living with the equipment.

I still run two 2011 Mini's on my internal LAN and expect to easily get 6+ years out of a Studio Max base model.

As time has gone by (particularly in the past ~5 years or so), the need to add user serviceable components like memory or storage is no longer applicable.

The fact that in the last 12 years, I used a 2012 macbook pro (dead battery, fixed it and donated to parents) and mac pro 5.1 till now year shows the durability and long lasting aspect of apple products. I have switched more iphones and ipads via upgrades than the laptop and desktops. I got a new m1 mbp 13" last year - my first after testing the 16"and returning it few years ago. I got the ultra and will see how it goes. But when you buy something, i usually keep it long term.

 

[theluggage]

One of Luke Miani's specific allegations in his video criticising Apple over user upgrade of Mac Studio storage is that the computer's internals are electrically dangerous. See 4:10:

Ok, first - to be clear - until proven otherwise, anybody actually taking their studio apart should heed the warnings and assume the PSU to be dangerous even after it’s been unplugged. These things contain capacitors that can stay charged with a couple of hundred volts. Leave it unplugged for a few hours first, and even then treat it as hot.

Moving from PSA to speculation about future upgradability, though, I think a bit more analysis is needed of that particular design before finally declaring it too dangerous for mere mortals to behold - from the video it looks like the back has a plastic shroud and several of the components appear to have individual shrouds. I certainly wouldn’t put my fingers anywhere near the leads coming from those two big capacitors - but that would require poking your finger right into the middle of the board which I‘d file under Darwin Award bait. It’s not like the old CRT Macs which harboured 15kV stuff that would follow you home from the office and electrocute you in your bed.

I notice a surprising lack of hysterical yellow “here be dragons” stickers on the module, too - maybe Apple have confidence in their bleed resistors…

 

[hans1972]

Published tonight. The lemmings who have jumped on this particular bandwagon aren't going to like what he has to say.

So he is in complete agreement with Apple about the upgradeability?

 

[F-Train]

So he is in complete agreement with Apple about the upgradeability?

Watch the video.

 

[startergo]

Let me tell you a little story from my experience. I have connected the SATA cable for my hard drives on my PC to the wrong socket and it burnt the controller's power circuitry. So, I bought some controller boards and replaced the faulty ones on the hard drives. Although the HDD's started spinning in my external HDD enclosure the data was not recognized. After that I swapped the memory chips from the boards through DE-soldering/re-soldering from to the boards (I also backed up the chips and reprogrammed the new chips for testing). So, at the end I was able to recover all 3 of my HDD's but making sure the correct memory chip was matched with its hard drive. Moral of the story.
The raw data device and the memory chip have to pair for the hard drive to recover its data. It may have been possible to reinitialize the HDD with the new chip, but I have not tried that as I needed my data back.