Mac mini 2018 Longevity

[Roxy.music]

Why is the SSD Drive soldered to the board? Surely like the ram on the 2014 Mac Mini it will limit the lifetime of the units.
Could I use an external enclosure 2M NVME SSD as the OS, rather than the internal drive after I have cloned the drive?
It would be nice if Apple could update the Mac Mini drive to be removable, but of course, Apple being Apple want do that.
And why did they not do it with a graphics card like the 2011 modal?
Plus the fact it does not have an SD card slot.

 

[ivnj]

I had no idea, thanks. Just saved me $799. But seriously not sure. I am using a 2014 Mac mini with external Lacie rugged thunderbolt its fine. Mac can boot from external unlike windows. So a decent usb3.1 C or TB3 nvme should suffice.

 

[Roxy.music]

I had no idea, thanks. Just saved me $799. But seriously not sure. I am using a 2014 Mac mini with external Lacie rugged thunderbolt its fine. Mac can boot from external unlike windows. So a decent usb3.1 C or TB3 nvme should suffice.

I don,t know why they could have not put a Graphics card in it like 2011 2.5 one that had a Radeon HD 6630M, after all, you are paying a lot of money for the base modal. I do like the Mac Mini, unfortunately, I got the base modal, they were saying that the 2012 models were better than the 2014 ones. At the time I did not realize they were talking about the quad-core ones .mine is only a duo one. but having said that with upgrading to
16gb ran and a Samsung Evo is working fine. But I was thinking about getting a 2018 Mini but changed my
mind even though you can upgrade the ram it is quite a job to do it

it might be easy to this guy but not me.

 

[4sallypat]

....they were saying that the 2012 models were better than the 2014 ones. At the time I did not realize they were talking about the quad-core ones .mine is only a duo one. but having said that with upgrading to
16gb ran and a Samsung Evo is working fine. But I was thinking about getting a 2018 Mini but changed my
mind even though you can upgrade the ram it is quite a job to do it

it might be easy to this guy but not me.

I have the 2012 Mini Server with the CTO/BTO 2.6GHz i7 quad core and 2x 1TB spinning hard drives.
The biggest issue similar to the 2013-2017 iMacs are the awful hard drives really slows down the machine when the CPU and RAM (16GB) are more than plenty to run fast.

So like @ivnj I am using an external LaCie TB2 with 500GB SSD (replaced out the stock internal drive with a Samsung EVO850) - when you boot off the LaCie using Thunderbolt, it really zips !

So the internal 2TB is being used for Time machine backups, archived video, photos, and other non essential storage...

 

[Tastannin]

I have been using a 2018 Mac mini with external TB3 NVME SSD for over a year now. Works great.

 

[Fishrrman]

The "drive soldered to the board" is almost a certainty on Macs that use a t2 security chip.
Probably going to be standard on ALL Macs before much longer -- because they'll ALL be using a t2 (or t3, or t4, etc.) chip in the future...

 

[Roxy.music]

I have been using a 2018 Mac mini with external TB3 NVME SSD for over a year now. Works great.

That is the only way to do it, with that measly 128 on the base modal is was far too little,at least they have upped the base modal to a more useable 256and the i5 to 512.

 

[Roxy.music]

This is something I found on a post on here about soldered ram on another post on here.
*I asked why the MacBook Pro Retina has soldered RAM. Some replied that having soldered RAM allows the MacBook Pro Retina to be thinner, never mind that there are laptops as thin as the MacBook Pro Retina that have upgradable RAM. I am letting this one slide it now.
So, why does the 21.5-inch iMac have soldered RAM?
Also, why does the Mac mini have soldered RAM?
I can't help but to reason that this was done so that Apple can charge exorbitant upgrade prices at the time of purchase,*
Of course, that is the reason
After all, Scrooge McDuck ...I mean Tim Cook... needs more money so that he can build another solid gold swimming pool.
*For the iMac, a thinness argument can also be made, although thinness is a lot less of a concern on a desktop to pretty much everyone but Apple. The 27" iMac is thicker and has enough room for RAM slots and an access door in the back.*
I can,t understand why they have to be soldered on the iMac 21.5 Most of the ones I see being sold second hand only have 8 Gb of ram. Why people did not go for 16 I don,t know.
*For the Mac mini, I'd have to say it's mostly corporate greed. If everyone simply upgrades the RAM themselves, Apple loses a lot of money on their overpriced RAM upgrades, and it also means the RAM can be upgraded in the future to give Apple's entry-level Mac more longevity instead of getting rid of it and buying a new one. Edit: Oh, and soldering RAM directly to the board instead of using slots is also cheaper to produce.*
That would be understandable if the product was cheap.

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The "drive soldered to the board" is almost a certainty on Macs that use a t2 security chip.
Probably going to be standard on ALL Macs before much longer -- because they'll ALL be using a t2 (or t3, or t4, etc.) chip in the future...

I was looking up what Mac.s have the T2 chip and see it only came in 2018.

 

[Roxy.music]

I have the 2012 Mini Server with the CTO/BTO 2.6GHz i7 quad-core and 2x 1TB spinning hard drives.
The biggest issue similar to the 2013-2017 iMacs is the awful hard drives really slows down the machine when the CPU and RAM (16GB) are more than plenty to run fast.

So like @ivnj I am using an external LaCie TB2 with 500GB SSD (replaced out the stock internal drive with a Samsung EVO850) - when you boot off the LaCie using Thunderbolt, it really zips !

So the internal 2TB is being used for Time machine backups, archived video, photos, and other non-essential storage...

Yes, bit you can upgrade it all though I tried it. it is quite a job I tried it but failed it is the fan that is the problem getting the connector on without breaking it. In the end, I had to take it to an independent Apple repair place. I wanted to put a second drive in there but the guy could not do it I bought a connected on eBay from china he said it could be a dodge connecter. It had a fusion drive in it. I don,t know whether or not it was something to do with me trying to put another drive-in is another thing. I will leave upgrades to the people who know what there doing next time.