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Soldered Storage: A Design Choice
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In abstract, Apple shouldn't need a different interface chip for different module sizes. But in practice, they might.
There are competing standards for how to interface to flash memory chips. The primary ones are ONFI (an open industry standard) and Toggle (a semi-proprietary standard mostly used by Toshiba and Samsung).
So if a 512GB module for a Studio uses ONFI NAND and a 1TB module uses Toggle NAND, it's possible that those two modules have different bridge chips. (It's also possible that Apple designed a single bridge chip which handles all existing flash interfaces.)
Complicating this picture a bit more, different generations of NAND flash memory have different error rate and error pattern characteristics, even from the same manufacturer. For performance, you want the error correction encode / decode to be done in a hardware accelerator block. If that block is part of the main SoC, you end up with a big risk of that SoC rapidly ceasing to be useful as new generations of flash memory take hold in the marketplace and start requiring new ECC algorithms. I don't know for sure whether Apple offloaded this function to their PCIe-NAND bridge chips, but it's an extremely logical thing for them to do. Hiding that detail behind the bridge chip lets them ship the same SoC with future generations of flash in future devices.
So... you can see now that there might need to be a lot of small variants on the bridge chip, and thus of the firmware which runs on it. And sometimes the need for a new variant might well be driven by the size of the module, either due to a change in vendor or a change in NAND flash generation (which often happens as you move up to higher density devices).
By the way, when I say "module", that includes Macs with soldered-down flash. Those black rectangular chip packages you see identified as flash in the teardown pics are, internally, a stack of several die: one Apple bridge chip plus several NAND flash die. The interface to these modules is PCIe regardless of whether it's on a PCB which plugs into a socket (as seen in the 2017 iMac Pro, 2019 Mac Pro, and Mac Studio) or soldered directly to the motherboard.
I'm not too familiar with how iCloud encryption works so I'll have to pass on answering that one. I'd be surprised if iCloud encryption wasn't really good, but I'd also be surprised if there isn't a larger potential attack surface on iCloud data.
Ideally, my last Mac was the 2012 models then jump to Apple Silicon in 2020, 2021 & 2022 models.
One wish I have for all Apple Silicon Macs is one or two NVMe M.2 slots for unencrypted storage. Imagine slotting in a couple of 4TB SSDs to supplement the 256GB & 512GB encypted base storage.
Another wish I have is that Apple capped their memory & storage upgrade prices to 2x that of Samsung or Crucial.
I believe they deserve to make money but not beyond 2x that of 3rd party solutions.
Ah, good point. The data demands for servers are definitely growing constantly
One can only hope that market pressure will eventually result in cheaper consumer storage...
Probably not in the short term. We're current in a bust phase of the market's normal boom-bust cycle, but that's unlikely to affect prices in the near future. Over time, NAND prices will continue to go down (historically by about 30%/yr). Consumer storage needs will continue to go up, but not at 30%/year, so the net cost should continue to decrease.Ah, good point. The data demands for servers are definitely growing constantly
One can only hope that market pressure will eventually result in cheaper consumer storage...
Source:
NAND prices drop, but customers won't benefit | TechTarget
The price of NAND is falling through the floor, but it may not benefit end users.
Ah, well, that settles it.
Oh wait, are any of those interconnects even relevant to the discussion? Which F-35 interconnect interfaces flash memory chips with the controller? and how much are these things anyway, and how large are they?I don't pretend that solder good, connector bad; at least not all the time. But if I'm working through a bill of materials, and I have a choice between a connector that is going to get me X additional revenue (directly or indirectly), and a soldered unit that will save me Y in manufacturing costs, X had better be at least comparable to Y, or I'm soldering.
Some people here seem to think that Apple managers went into a room and said "how can we screw our customers best?" That's just dumb, given Apple history. More likely they went into a room and balanced the number of upgrade requestors against the incremental production and sales cost of offering a socketed, upgradeable device.
FWIW, I'm running a late 2013 rMBP with a 256GB SSD. There have been times that I wished it were larger, but I've managed to deal with it. All the additional "stuff" I might want goes either in icloud (pix) or on external devices (rare). I think we've reached something of a plateau for storage needs. If you don't agree, well, configure a larger storage device. This isn't rocket science.
Depends. Mine is uparmored, runs on JP-8, and is fitted with a GAU-8.
um… the ones who want a Mac, the same way they always have?
Most “students” who are buying Macs for school don’t and have never cared about upgrade ability.
Even when it was available, the vast majority of Mac users were not upgrading their ram and hard drives by themselves.
Not sure why this would affect that in any way, students see the $899 M1 MacBook Air, see that it’s super portable and has industry-leading battery life and performance and decide to buy it.
The Mac really isn’t that expensive, most computers I’d assume purchased under the $500 mark these days are iPads or chrome books, and above that you’re just getting into Mac Mini/MacBook Air territory.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. — Hanlon's Razor
The Original Macintosh: Diagnostic Port
Please, read the story of the "Diagnostic" port. It happened long before anybody started calling servers "the cloud". At a time when Bill Gates (allegedly) thought "640K ought to be enough for anybody". It's a philosophical dispute. Followed to its conclusion it splits the computing world into two very distinct branches. Have a look:
What's a computer? ... Anyway!
Can anybody see why Steve Jobs thought, modularity would make the Mac more complicated?
It's a bug not a feature.
Just bear in mind that they only have one product, they are a new company in the crowded PC space and and in regards to being a PC, most other PC’s are upgradable (in regard to slotting in an SSD or RAM) which is comparatively easier than building a computer (if you go for the DIY model) or changing a display (which can be done by the user with Framework) and so on.
They will never be in top 5 PC vendors. They don’t even enter the radar. I would be surprised if they have sold more than 30k units to date. But they have their niche and I hope for them that’s it’s enough to sustain the business. As much as I don’t care about what they are selling I think it’s important to have different t options on the market.
4TB SSD’s have really gone down in price (£549 Seagate gen 4.0). Even an 8TB SSD (£1599 Sabrent gen 4.0) seems to be in reach for professionals and prosumers with a healthy budget so I do think they will decrease a bit.
I have seen HDD prices remain quite high due to slowing storage increases and perhaps lower competition as they are mainly targeted at businesses now.
Edit: also just to compare pricing 8TB from Apple is a £2400 upgrade price. 4TB is £1200
Now I'm all for making a profit but this seems to be a bit much considering the SSD prices accounted for retailer and manufacturer profits on top of actually designing and manufacturing the chips. Obviously Apple has no intention or interest in lowering their prices.
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Well I would disagree with that. When I went to university in the later oughts people around me would upgrade their computers, usually RAM and storage. YouTube, iFixit and the rest of the internet has made finding information about how to do it incredibly easy. There has been a resurgence in the DIY PC Gamer market. The only reason you’re saying that is because they have no choice in the matter when it comes to a mac at the moment. If this was still an option people would definitely be doing it especially during periods of economic hardship and making the most of their purchase.
Some people seem to have a really low opinion about what other people can do and the argument tends to be no one wants to do it when there hasn’t been an option to do it since 2016 and that was significantly curtailed in 2012 when the Retina MBP was announced with a proprietary connector. I just think people should have the choice to do it or not. If they sell the computer at least someone else has a choice and if they can’t then they can hire someone to do it for them and there will be someone employed to do it.
Most? Some are, but the top sellers look a lot like Apple’s top seller (MBA).
There was a time, not too long ago, where a company entered the crowded phone market and did pretty well. The largest difference is likely that THAT company was offering a set of features that, in total, a fairly large number of people wanted to buy. What Framework is offering isn’t really what a massive number of folks want. SOME do, but, as a feature, “upgradability” is not something that most people put in their top 3 requirements.
“went to university” is key. I would be surprised if folks in university were NOT upgrading their computers. Extend that to the rest of the world where the majority aren’t in and haven’t attended university, and the practice changes significantly.
I can imagine at some time in the past, a large percentage of the computers sold in a given quarter were expected to be upgraded. Not just once, but maybe multiple times. Because, the largest number of people with the money and the wherewithal to buy them understood very well how to do so. The market has expanded well beyond that, now, such that “computer as appliance” is something that many understand and even expect.
Really Apple customers are not educated? You need a university degree to unscrew a back panel and slot in an SSD?
This perception that everyone is a troglodyte who can barely rub two twigs together is a rather alarming indictment of the current state of humanity.
In some parts of the world people reuse and make the most of what they have. It’s not a disposable culture when you do not have much and have to use the resources that you do have.
Yet they are upgradeable. Top 3 Lenovo, HP and Dell
Like I said Framework has one product, it's a new company in a crowded Wintel market. Their competition like Lenovo, HP and Dell offer basic storage upgradability, RAM is usually upgradable and batteries are replaceable. Have you opened a PC before?
Frameworks main selling point is that the entire computer is easy to repair and upgrade and you can customise the port selection, even put together the thing yourself. They have one design which I personally think needed more time with the designers and engineers to make a compelling product.
All I'm asking for is that storage drive can be user upgradable. The battery too (when Apple allows that with their DIY repair service). It's not a lot to ask for. Just give people the option.
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Yeah, if you look at PC's in the same category as the MBA (thin-and-light laptops), many of those have limited upgradeability (upgradeable storage, but non-upgradeable RAM seems to be common--though that's still more than the MBA).
But the 14"/16" MBP's, and the Studio, are in a different category. Their PC equivalents would be high-end mobile workstations and mid-range desktop workstations, respectively. And if you look at what PC vendors are doing in those categories, you'll find non-upgradeabiliy is the exception. Indeed, I think you'd be hard pressed to find any mid-range and above desktop workstations that don't have both upgradeable RAM and storage, other than the Studio.
Of course, elsewhere in this thread we've discussed why that is, and some good points have been made for why the MBP's and Studio are non-upgradeable. But let's make no mistake that this represents a striking departure from what PC vendors are currently doing in the same categories.
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None of that has anything to do with what I said.
You asked why and how college students could purchase a Mac these days, and I said the same way they always have.
The vast majority of students are not, and have never upgraded their computers by themselves. That’s just a fact, they haven’t, even when it was an option.
You can’t talk about normal students, and then jump to gaming PCs, because no matter how popular they seem to be getting in certain spaces, they’re a niche within a niche.
Video editors, photographers, people doing any other type of college work are not buying a gaming PC to take to class.
You’re wrong there, have a look what designers, architects and other students working in 3D are using. Also please look again with video editors and those working in moving image, not everyone is on a Mac and the software they use needs a beefy graphics card that doesn't cost the same as a workstation one but delivers similar results.
No, one simply needs the desire to do so. The desire and the curiosity to do so may not align 100% with those with a university education, but it wouldn’t be a stretch to realize that a high percentage of those with a university education that want to fiddle around in their computers and a lower percentage of those with a high school education would do the same.
Well, if that’s what you think about folks that don’t care to upgrade their computers…
Just because someone didn’t upgrade their computer, they didn’t get rid of it (maybe in some university circles?). They didn’t have much and just kept using the system they had for 3-4 years, or more. They COULD have upgraded it, they just didn’t. This is the reality that forced vendors to reassess their assumptions about what their customers wanted.
Absolutely, vendors charge that smaller set of customers extra for upgradability because they know those spending in that range may actually change their minds based on that feature. But, inherent in that understanding is the realization that, in the mass market, they know that upgradability is is not something the wider market values.
Apple has effectively sent those customers that value upgradability in high cost systems to the competition. Likely because Apple were certain that they could find a large enough market of people that either didn’t value upgradability highly OR didn’t value it highly ENOUGH (they value macOS more, for example) to prevent them from making the purchase.
I can think of at least one other benefit: how many SSD controllers are built on a 5 nm node? Apple gets a huge battery benefit by integrating the SSD controller on die.