Upgrading M4 Mac Mini SSD: Pre-Soldered 2TB Chip Options

[aUsern@me]

Let's just imagine a universe where Apple did something as consumer hostile as this. Consider the blowback—intentionally bricking someone's machine as a result of remotely spot-checking the configuration.

Apple has been this hostile before.
Back when memory was much more expensive, perhaps the G3/G4 days, people were successfully running out of spec, 3rd party, slower, RAM in their machines. Apple released a firmware update that effectively disabled the RAM. Nowhere in the release notes for the firmware did it read, "Tightens RAM tolerances," or "Disables 3rd party RAM."

People were pissed. Apple thrived.

 

[smithrh]

A link to that would be nice.

But furthermore, you say "out of spec" memory.

Also, times have changed since the G3/G4 days, if you haven't noticed.

 

[ChadGippidy]

Apple has been this hostile before.
Back when memory was much more expensive, perhaps the G3/G4 days, people were successfully running out of spec, 3rd party, slower, RAM in their machines. Apple released a firmware update that effectively disabled the RAM. Nowhere in the release notes for the firmware did it read, "Tightens RAM tolerances," or "Disables 3rd party RAM."

People were pissed. Apple thrived.

I feel like Apple is a lot more careful nowdays. EU is on their *ss.

 

[aUsern@me]

A link to that would be nice.

RAM disabled by Apple firmware update is not "bad."

It's really quite funny watching the people at MacCentral and MacNN squeal with delight as Jobs takes them from behind with the latest firmware update. Some samples:"Serves you right for buying cheap RAM!""You get what you pay for!" (which, after car analogies, is the most common Mac-user...

arstechnica.com

Best I could do with minimal effort. Feel free to search yourself.

But furthermore, you say "out of spec" memory.

Right. Kind of like how we're discussing putting "out of spec" third party storage in a modern Mac.

Also, times have changed since the G3/G4 days, if you haven't noticed.

I have noticed. Apple is a much larger, much more powerful company today. They're also much less dependent on the Mac than they were in the early aughts. Back then, nearly their entire business was the Mac and they still disabled people's third party RAM. Today, Mac revenue is less than 10% of their business.

I'm not saying Apple would do something this dickish again - just that they have in the past. Apple does varying degrees of "consumer hostile" stuff all the time. Normally, a minority of people bitch and complain, but most don't. Nearly always, such moves improve their bottom line.

 

[splifingate]

LOL. For some reason AI translates "external enclosure" in such a hilarious way.
Be careful with AI

I started thinking that these guys were just so dedicated/focused that they needed a catheter...

 

[Chancha]

It absolutely does.
The serial number of your device is linked to the amount of storage it has when you purchased it.
If Apple releases a software update that requires a serial number check, you’re very possibly out of luck.
If something completely unrelated to the solid-state drive breaks in the computer, you’re out of luck.
It’s not a card swap, it’s an unauthorized warranty voiding process.
I’m sorry to say, however upgradable it may appear, it’s not a 2010 MacPro. If Apple ever wants to, they can shut that down real quick.

We are simply talking on the opposite ends of what can happen, and the reality is probably somewhere in between.

Apple sometimes go out of their way to ensure 3rd party parts don't work like the TouchID parts on iPhone and then the screen replacement on MacBooks for instance. But the same NAND replacement concerning this thread, Apple has not found a need or perhaps even a realistic method to regulate (iPhone and soldered MacBook NAND replacement / upgrade service has been around for years.) I don't see them behaving differently with respect to Mac mini, the biggest potential catch if we are talking about the daughter card board method is, if there are other chips on the card that are fundamentally different than how the vanilla Apple board is configured, then there is a possibility future macOS / firmware to be incompatible. But even then it is likely a by-product of Apple software movement, vs a delibrate shutdown as you described.

 

[throAU]

Just doing a card swap should not void the warranty, unless you have physically broken something internal that’s beyond repair.

But yes, the overseas pricing has questionable value. But if someone is absolutely only looking at internal, it is a better deal than with Apple BTO, then that is that.

Depends if the third party SSD you bought happens to have a manufacturing defect/short in the board and it destroys your socket on the motherboard doesn't it.

Not sure I'd roll that dice with low production hand made budget parts from china.

You do you though.


M.2 SSDs from a major vendor (Samsung, Crucial, etc.) that damages your device - you have somebody to chase for compensation. Some stuff off Alibaba, eBay or whatever; good luck!

 

[throAU]

Nowhere in the release notes for the firmware did it read, "Tightens RAM tolerances," or "Disables 3rd party RAM."

Why would it? They wrote their firmware for the devices they supplied, explicitly did not support third party upgrades and thus were never going to test against them.

Could it have been malice? Sure. Is it 100% guaranteed that it was? No.


Apple have done similar things with digital signatures on screens, touchid sensors, etc. to reduce iPhone theft, reduce security exposure (via dodgy touchid sensors), etc. But that's different.

 

[Chancha]

Depends if the third party SSD you bought happens to have a manufacturing defect/short in the board and it destroys your socket on the motherboard doesn't it.

Not sure I'd roll that dice with low production hand made budget parts from china.

You do you though.


M.2 SSDs from a major vendor (Samsung, Crucial, etc.) that damages your device - you have somebody to chase for compensation. Some stuff off Alibaba, eBay or whatever; good luck!

This is so many layers of what-if on top, is it even still relevant? One above poster noted it is essentially the same deal if you plug an external 3rd party USB device or cable that fries the Mac. In other words, the act of card swap is not the part that voids the warranty, which is an important fact to state, because some comments here seem to suggest otherwise.

 

[neomorpheus]

I do not understand why someone would agree with that belief, unless their interests are aligned with Apple's corporate interests.

I understand loving a product, but some customers forget that they are just that customers and blind loyalty to such companies its beyond stupid.
You as a consumer, need to look out for you first, to hell with these greedy companies.

Almost every post that someone makes complaining about apple greed its always met by an army of defenders.

It absolutely does.
The serial number of your device is linked to the amount of storage it has when you purchased it.
If Apple releases a software update that requires a serial number check, you’re very possibly out of luck.
If something completely unrelated to the solid-state drive breaks in the computer, you’re out of luck.
It’s not a card swap, it’s an unauthorized warranty voiding process.
I’m sorry to say, however upgradable it may appear, it’s not a 2010 MacPro. If Apple ever wants to, they can shut that down real quick.

See below, but as a customer since the Apple ][ days, such actions will make me leave for good. Mind you, i am currently down to just an ipad and struggling to justify a Mac (a mini in this case) just because of their hostility upgrade wise.

Let's just imagine a universe where Apple did something as consumer hostile as this. Consider the blowback—intentionally bricking someone's machine as a result of remotely spot-checking the configuration. The only thing more ridiculous than it happening in the first place would be the MacRumors Apple Defense Squad® that would celebrate it. It's like half the users here aspired to be a high school hall monitor or something.

Given I don't put much credence in Apple's "we're all about privacy" marketing theater, I'm more predisposed than most to believe they are capable of doing something as bogglingly stupid. One would hope their allergy toward bad press would cause an adult in the room to stand up and say, "you know, we shouldn't do this" before a figurative switch got flipped.

Hardware hacking has risks, no question. Know what you're doing / know your limits is the first rule of thumb. Sacrificing your warranty, or making a noob mistake and bodging the whole process, is a very real possibility. But Apple gets no say in what I do with a machine after I pay my hard earned money and leave the store with it.

See both responses above, but yes, wholeheartedly agree on your whole post.

 

[splifingate]

Polysoft, et al. did the modeling science and hand-build units, contracted with Chinese manufacturers to mass-manufacture units, and others then copied/incorporated that design science into their own products.

In the end, making such things at-scale in a 1:1 economical, precise manner involves machinery available only to those at the heart of such matters.

The mentioned add-in cards are produced at-scale, which effectively makes them basically no different than regular m.2 units we source from AAPL, Samsung, SKH or Micron.

Would I roll the dice with low production hand made parts from France? I'm not that adventurous (I'm satisfied with the original 2TB storage in my M2 Studio); but others are, and they seem to have found great success

If I was really interested in upgrading, I'd be more inclined to roll with machine-assembly-platform units (whether they were sourced from AAPL, Polysoft, or a direct-from-source Chinese product).

AAPL users had #9, AE, Titan Tech, Zip, etc. available for their II+, IIc and IIe units back in the day.

Starting in 2006, we effectively had a PC-type level of freedom to switch in/out parts. To this day, I can do the same with my MP5,1 (even to the point that the use of OC allows me to take that even further (with no take-down notice/disable-bit)).

Now, were back to where we were in the 80's: the ability to use after-market mods in limited-port designs.

It's my bet that: if AAPL had intentionally desired to restrict mods, they would have not exposed the slots on these units.

[resumes Lurk Mode...]

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

Let's just imagine a universe where Apple did something as consumer hostile as this.

No need to imagine, they have literally done this before.

 

[wisdpi]

looks easy from m4-ssd.com

life test live

 

[turbineseaplane]

looks easy from m4-ssd.com

life test live

Price needs to be about $200 max for 2TB -- especially since the read/write speeds are no better than NVMe in a TB enclosure

 

[genexx]

The 1TB Version on AliExpress are way cheaper and having some options but i can not figure out what the different Nand Chipsets are.

The 2TB Price makes no sense for me, because i have 2 working Acasis TBU405 Air with WD SN770 2TB and with my MBA M2 as Boot Drive the Temps are Cool the Energy consume is low and the Speed is even better than the Internal so as using it for a Desktop Mac Mini it is absolutely perfect to boot from external TB3/4.

This would be way more interesting if the next MacBook Air M4 has a drive slot like this.

I would assume the SD... is the Sandisk variant.

2TB

1TB

1TB

 

[smithrh]

I suspect the price will come down as the learning curve is mounted and other competitors come to market.

Also, the Mac mini market may be bigger than the Mac Studio market in this particular case.

And yes, Apple do lots of consumer-hostile things. Have you seen their NAND pricing?

 

[splifingate]

(a mini in this case)

What's the last Mac Desktop that you've used?

 

[neomorpheus]

What's the last Mac Desktop that you've used?

cMP 4.1 personal and Intel Mac Mini, 2018 I think.

 

[turbineseaplane]

The 2TB Price makes no sense for me, because i have 2 working Acasis TBU405 Air with WD SN770 2TB and with my MBA M2 as Boot Drive the Temps are Cool the Energy consume is low and the Speed is even better than the Internal so as using it for a Desktop Mac Mini it is absolutely perfect to boot from external TB3/4.

This would be way more interesting if the next MacBook Air M4 has a drive slot like this.

Agree about price … also using the same enclosure and drive as you … fantastic performance and cool as a cucumber

I’d jump on the 2Tb internal for $200 or less just for the cleanliness of the setup, but no way at $300+

 

[splifingate]

cMP 4.1 personal and Intel Mac Mini, 2018 I think.

ah!

Relatively current.

You will notice the I/O improvements more than CPU/GPU/display-facing improvements (though the latter will still be quite impressive) with AS.

If I didn't already have a M2 Studio (and more-important things to which I need to apply precious funds), I'd be eating the new Mini for breakfast lunch and dinner

 

[neomorpheus]

ah!

Relatively current.

You will notice the I/O improvements more than CPU/GPU/display-facing improvements (though the latter will still be quite impressive) with AS.

If I didn't already have a M2 Studio (and more-important things to which I need to apply precious funds), I'd be eating the new Mini for breakfast lunch and dinner

Dont get me wrong, the M4 and the Mac Mini are simply amazing.

But I hate how Apple if price gouging their loyal customers with the insane pricey upgrades.

16 GB of ram does not cost 200 and 256 GB of storage definitely does not and should not cost 200.

Its not like they are struggling for money to be pulling this kind of crap.

Honestly, if they werent so stingy, the M4 Mac Mini could easily displace a lot of PC's and move the Mac market share to crazy levels. I have zero issue in predicting 50% market share.

But I honestly think that Apple dont want to ever dominate the personal computing market.

 

[splifingate]

But I hate how Apple if price gouging their loyal customers with the insane pricey upgrades.

I feel you, Brother.

I'm lucky to be able to get most of the things that I want, but I agree with you that the buying of these lovely things just isn't inherently satisfying.

I do more spec-shopping than cost, and it just feels like a shell game (and an extremely confusing one, at that).

Want >100GB/s of memory bandwidth? M4 Pro (+USD200)

~400GB/s memory bandwidth? M4 Max (+USD400 oops! gana have to get a MBP (uh, but I wanted a desktop!))

>500GB/s memory bandwidth? M4 Max 40-core GPU (+USD300 (and I still wanted a desktop!))

[warning: this is armchair math (prone to severe error in the face of the convoluted decision-making matrix (all-the-while not even including the various storage options in the mix))]

This will become even more complicated when the new Studio comes out.

Same with the iPhone. Why can't they just all be Pros, and be done with it?

Fun times ahead!

 

[Alameda]

Will they?

I feel like we said this about Studio upgrades also ... and I don't think that ever materialized
Or did it?

I think the Mac Studio is a far lower volume product than the Mac Mini, so there’s far more business potential to build boards for the Mini.

 

[weckart]

Agree about price … also using the same enclosure and drive as you … fantastic performance and cool as a cucumber

I’d jump on the 2Tb internal for $200 or less just for the cleanliness of the setup, but no way at $300+

From what I can remember from dosdude1's video, Apple is using enterprise endurance chips in the Mini4, so the choice is to pay more than you otherwise would for a 2TB SSD on Amazon or wait until other Chinese factories try to undercut with cheaper consumer level NAND. That's assuming Apple hasn't put some sort of checks in the firmware that would reject lower grade NAND.

If consumer grade NAND works, there wouldn't be a compelling reason to plump for the more expensive NAND as you could just swap out the board later as wear levelling dictates, also assuming that there won't be a huge increase in NAND prices for whatever reason in the future or Apple finds a way to block this from working. You would normally expect prices to lower. 2TB this year might be 4TB in a couple of years.

 

[DaveF]

This question has been floating around, but I haven’t seen an updated answer in about a month.

I have an M4 Mac Mini with 32GB of RAM on the way. It comes with a 256GB SSD, but I’d like to upgrade the internal drive (not just plug in an external). I also don’t want to deal with soldering.

Is there anywhere I can buy a chip with 2TB storage already soldered and ready to install? Has anyone done this upgrade successfully?

However, did I read that people are getting external drives to run faster than internal ones and can use AI on the external? Maybe that's better... or am I making this up? I need more sleep.

On sale right now. Caveat emptor.

3rd party Mac mini M4 drive

M4-SSD is 3rd party Mac mini M4 drive. Users can directly replace the original drive with it, without any soldering process, greatly reducing the difficulty of the upgrade.

m4-ssd.com