SSD in Mac Studio: is it upgradable?

[ADGrant]

They did a full wipe and tried to use the ssd both in the second slot and in the first slot.

It wouldn’t work. Apple has locked them down so the storage is paired to a certain machine.

These are there to save apple money on config options, and apple are able to repair and replace SSDs but screw the customer.

Why is anyone who has been following this thread surprised. Apple has paired its SSDs to specific SoCs since the first T2 Mac was launched almost five years ago (2017 iMac Pro).

Also, though not soldered to the motherboard, the SSD slots in the Studio are clearly not intended to be accessed by end users, you have to remove an unshielded power supply to access them.

 

[Lihp8270]

Why is anyone who has been following this thread surprised. Apple has paired its SSDs to specific SoCs since the first T2 Mac was launched almost five years ago (2017 iMac Pro).

Also, though not soldered to the motherboard, the SSD slots in the Studio are clearly not intended to be accessed by end users, you have to remove an unshielded power supply to access them.

The big thing for me is that apple see the value in having them Modular, when it benefits them. They have no intention of passing those benefits onto a customer.

 

[turbineseaplane]

The big thing for me is that apple see the value in having them Modular, when it benefits them. They have no intention of passing those benefits onto a customer.

^^^^^

Ding ding ding...

We have a winner!!

 

[deconstruct60]

They did a full wipe and tried to use the ssd both in the second slot and in the first slot.

Not sure why they had any expectation that would work. These are NOT SSDs. They are NAND daughter cards for a SSD controller that is inside the M-series chip. It is like going to a 2.5" Samsung SSD , removing a NAND chip from one driver, and then place it in another drive and expect things to work.

"Full wipe" ???? Of what. A 'drive' erase? That doesn't fully wipe the SDD drive at all. The meta data is still there. There is no end user "Full wipe" of a SSD drive. There is a pretty good chance that Apple is encrypting all of the data on the drive ; including the driver's meta data.


For the Mac Pro for which Apple sold NAND module upgrades for there is the following note:

"... Important: The modules are marked “1” and “2”. The module marked “1” must be installed in the socket marked “1” and the module marked “2” must be installed in the socket marked “2”. ..."

Uninstall and install SSD modules on Mac Pro

Instructions for uninstalling and installing SSD modules in Mac Pro tower.

support.apple.com

Pretty good chance these are not completely generic modules. They are not suppose to be tossed into system's randomly. Nor should mix and match them with different operating usage , capacity , or other commodity properties criteria.


Very good chances that this system is not set up for used drive exchange. A pairs of "fresh from the factory" modules go in and all the data (including drive wear metadata ) is reset to 'zero'. This practice of sticking drives that have been used for a period of time in another system into a second system as substitutes or augments is just deeply, deeply flawed. Trying to map independing SSDs back onto the internals of a single SSD. Two fundamentally different contexts.
[ Get single NAND daugther card implementations when the capacity is relatively low. But to upgrade to a high capacity would be dropping the original single card. You can't really "pair" that with a NAND card with a different usage history. ]

It wouldn’t work. Apple has locked them down so the storage is paired to a certain machine.

It isn't really "Locked down" any more than a single drive is. It is like replacing a single platter in a multiple platter HDD or stuffing a NAND chip into a single M.2 SSD drive.

These are there to save apple money on config options, and apple are able to repair and replace SSDs but screw the customer.

Mainly this is a side effect of encrypting all of the data on the drive; and yes all as in every single bit. There is probably no drive metadata being stored in the 'clear' here. Even the drive's data about which blocks are worn , what logic block is stored in which physical blocks, housekeeping data , partition metadata , etc. is likely all encrypted also. The drive is completely opaque without the Secure Enclave held key. Encryption is always on 24/7/365; there is no 'off' state.

There are wear management strategies that leverage the randomize state of the data to improve wear management.

There is an end of lifecycle benefit for user organizations that retain and destroy the drives at the end of lifecycle before retire a system out of their organization. Orgs that can pull the drive could hand the rest of the Mac back to Apple for recycling ( or refurb if coming off lease. )

Apple isn't opening up a open , commodity component market for SSD internals nor opening the used parts from a 'boneyard of dead/retired Macs'. Apple is also isn't enabling data recovery off of their drives. When they fail , you need to have a backup. Period. The user value trade off is that there is much tighter data security for the user.

Apple makes more money also, but it isn't zero user value add. Apple is putting a priority of security and performance over commodity modularity.

 

[deconstruct60]

But they have NOT done so with the 2019 Intel Mac Pro, which uses the same basic scheme (two separate M.2-esque SSD slots)...?

they are not SSDs. There are two substantial problems.

The first huge problem for the 3rd parties is that what is what would have to be delivered here is highly compatible internals for a single SSD. NAND chips are not 100% interchangeable. ( wear properties and some characteristics vary between vendors and implementations that a SSD controller has to take into account). The 3rd party does not have any control over the SSD controller or its firmware ( wear managements specifics , etc. ).

Apple also has a proprietary "communication" chip that is not an open market avaialble part. So 3rd party are very likely not going to reverse engineer that highly custom chip and commossion it to be made at a fab for relatively low volume of Mac storage replacement sales.

Where Apple was making a standard SSD ( controller + NAND on a card) with a connector with a difference in where place the notch between the same general set of pins running a industry standard protocol is wholly different.

The second huge problem is that there is even 5 years after Apple introduced the NAND daughter card concept for the iMac Pro that even tech article and most user forum responses are still dogmatically tied into classifying these things as SSDs ( and so should behave as two independent SSDs.). People trying to stuff cards into slots where just because it looks like it might physically fit and expecting it to work. A bad support coverage cases is when have bunch of users who think they know what they are doing , but really have no idea what they are holding.

 

[deconstruct60]

Good point… Time to call them up and ask about the feasibility of producing/manufacturing such an upgrade, including the 2019 Mac Pro. 😉 Has there at least been any resellers of such Apple proprietary SSDs?

There have been no implementers who sell Apple proprietary SSD clones. There was one that pretended to send back Apple ID numbers , but it did not implement Apple's solution internally. There were several others that adapted to a Apple proprietary connector ( same set of pins as a mSATA or M.2, but notch placement different between the pins. That is just a different printed circuit board, not cloned silicon chips.)

Nobody like OWC is going to try to build cloned silicon (have to hire a fab to construct custom chip dies). All of their drive solutions are off of reference designs by SSD controller implementations that they just buy off the shelf and mildly customize with some firmware settings ( and pick the NAND chips the SSD maker says to select as compatible with purchased controller. ).

This isn't like any of that at all. Apple has a proprietary chips involves that nobody sells. And uses a tweaked, custom data protocols between their proprietary chips. The 3rd parties have no access to or parameter settings access to the SSD controller at all. How the NAND chips are manage is 100% up to Apple and their settings. The NAND chips are pragmatically an internal component to a 'closed' Apple component device. What Apple has done is take a single SSD and decompose it into pieces. What the request is for is to be a subcontractor on a construction project for which the prmiary contractor didn't hire them to do work on. That isn't going to work.

Several years ago Apple bought a SSD controller design company. They make their own SSDs and what proposing is jumping into the middle of those closed loop implementations. Not doing a PCIe or SATA standard protocol , whole SSD.

T2 and now M-series boot encryption security changes things even more. At this point Macs don't boot into EFI/UEFI and then onto a drive. The drive itself is embedded into the initial chain of trust of the boot process. The Mac specific part of the boot firmware actually comes off the drive. ( can't external boot if there is no functional internal drive).

T-series era forward there are not 3rd party solutions for the primary boot drive.