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Upgrading M4 Mac Mini SSD: Pre-Soldered 2TB Chip Options
- Thread starter ItsAShaunParty
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What about a 2009 Macbook Air? is running Sequoia per courtesy of Open Core Patcher.
This was going to be my option, but I heard vague rumors of M4 minis having random USB3 port disconnects? Has that been worked out?
I tried today with a Mac mini m4 ang got the same problem- at the moment when the installation starts, the restored Mac drops off the DFU mode and the connection goes lost, showing the error…. What am I doing wrong, guys?
Are you using a Virtual machine MacOS to do the apple configurator restore? I had no problem restoring my M4 mini with a M1 MBA and M3 MBP 16. It's important that you use the TB4 middle port though on the m4 mini.
I've tried it and it's clunky at best. I tried booting off the internal 256gb and moved my user folder to the external and I was getting all sorts of iCloud sync issues. I then tried booting off the external, but didn't like I had to do hacks also to use Apple Intelligence. I also want a cleaner desktop.
I had exactly the same problem. Ended up creating a hackintosh just for this purpose. I used the default EFI for my CPU, it worked right away and sufficiently to do the restore.
Prior to that, I doctored for 3 to 4 hours on the VM. Played with the USB settings, different cables and ports, no luck.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't these the same NANDs used in official Apple SSD boards? or by other well known brands?
Do you stress your official mac SSDs with hundreds of gb file transfers? If we're looking at the same NAND, I'd think you'd see similar failure rates...
I've already had one 2TB module that failed. While the NAND is the same as Apple, the solder quality and other components like the PCB, capacitors, and resistors are definitely not built to the same standard as Apple's module. You also only have 90 days of recourse to get a refund if there's something wrong. I doubt you'll have much recourse if the drive fails after 90 days.
For any failure like the one magbarn had, it's almost certainly going to come early in usage.
Hit it hard when you first get it, then if it fails, return it. Otherwise it's very highly likely to survive as long as you have your mini.
One industry term for early failures like these is morbidly called "infant mortality" which means it's common enough to have a nickname.
Hit it hard when you first get it, then if it fails, return it. Otherwise it's very highly likely to survive as long as you have your mini.
One industry term for early failures like these is morbidly called "infant mortality" which means it's common enough to have a nickname.
1yr warranty would be nice, rushing this chips due to high demand orders will likely have early failures.
It's certainly doable. Dosdude has just reported a successful upgrade.
Just needs someone to reverse engineer the drive board. I would assume the usual suspects will have something out soon enough.
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3 days ago I got a 2TB Toshiba/Kioxia from Aliexpress,
Came in a kit that contained an antistatic wristband, screwdriver with two bits, a spudger and a guitar pick style pry card.
Although correctly labelled and appearing high quality, the screwdriver bits seemed a bit small, I wouldn't recommend using them as you would likely strip the screw heads, it was also missing the smaller bit required for fan removal so it wasn't a complete "all tools required" situation.
I didn't use any of the included toolkit, opting to use my own tools and spudger.
I used an old GPS windscreen mount as a suction cup to help remove the Mac mini base, makes it a lot easier to slip a spudger in that way.
The contacts on the new SSD were a little dirty so I cleaned them up with isopropyl alcohol before first installing.
I just had the 16/256GB base model, comparison pics between the Apple stock and the 2TB replacement below.
Have looped a few benchmarks as a kind of stress test as well as copying a couple hundred GB of files to and from, couple DFU restores, zero issues so far.
Today I copied 1.5 TB to and from the system without issue, needed to consolidate some external drives and decided to use the situation as another kind of test by copying everything to the Mac first and then onto a single external drive and backup NAS, double checked the files after and they are not corrupt etc.
Came in a kit that contained an antistatic wristband, screwdriver with two bits, a spudger and a guitar pick style pry card.
Although correctly labelled and appearing high quality, the screwdriver bits seemed a bit small, I wouldn't recommend using them as you would likely strip the screw heads, it was also missing the smaller bit required for fan removal so it wasn't a complete "all tools required" situation.
I didn't use any of the included toolkit, opting to use my own tools and spudger.
I used an old GPS windscreen mount as a suction cup to help remove the Mac mini base, makes it a lot easier to slip a spudger in that way.
The contacts on the new SSD were a little dirty so I cleaned them up with isopropyl alcohol before first installing.
I just had the 16/256GB base model, comparison pics between the Apple stock and the 2TB replacement below.
Have looped a few benchmarks as a kind of stress test as well as copying a couple hundred GB of files to and from, couple DFU restores, zero issues so far.
Today I copied 1.5 TB to and from the system without issue, needed to consolidate some external drives and decided to use the situation as another kind of test by copying everything to the Mac first and then onto a single external drive and backup NAS, double checked the files after and they are not corrupt etc.
My 2TB upgrade finally arrived well after Chinese New Year. Grabbed a fresh base M4 mini. The kit I used came with 3 screwdrivers (T4,T5,T8), metal wedge, and 3x plastic wedges. Price has gone up at https://expandmacmini.com/ since I bought.
Installed quickly, not too hard. Better than the memory upgrade on the 2018 mini.
DFU update took minutes with Thunderbolt cable to my 2018 mini and high speed internet.
The 2TB is quite a bit faster than the 256GB.
The write is 2.7x faster per BlackMagic Speed Test. Read is 1.1x.
AmorphousDiskMark was 1.6x write and 1.15x read
A bit surprised how different the boards look from each other. I thought the Aliexpress boards would be more or less clones of the Apple original.