Apple gets a mass of attack for its unfriendly approach to user hangout and rise — you ca n’t really do them . But there ’s a ray of light of hope with the new Mac mini , which start shipping on Friday .
In a teardown posted on X , ohgkgshows that the Mac miniskirt ’s SSD is on a separate panel instead of integrated with the M4 chip .
Partial teardown of M4 Mac Mini /w 16 GB RAM & 256 GB SSD . Interesting revealation [ stet ] : Wifi chip & feeler on the back of bottom air intake . SSD on a daughter board . And even the foot 256 GB version get in two chips . No compromise in pep pill . Theoretically also end drug user upgradable .
On X , L0vertodream alsopostedon X a Mac mini teardown . L0vetodream states that “ it is indeed a 1 - slot threefold - one-armed bandit with a maximal particle size of 1 TB . It uses a BGA315 hard disk and the maximal upgrade capacity can be up to 2 T ” [ translated ] .
register our in - deepness followup of the M3 Pro Mac mini .
This SSD setup is similar to that of the Mac Studio , which also has freestanding SSD module . Ars Technicapoints out that Apple ’s implementation is n’t like that of Windows PC where the SSD controller is contained with the SSD hardware . Apple ’s SSD controller is built into the M - series potato chip . Because of that , you ca n’t just swop out the Mac Studio ’s or Mac miniskirt ’s SSD with a part buy from Amazon or some computer entrepot . There are other reasons why off - the - shelf part wo n’t work , like the possibleness that the Mac ’s SSD slot have restrictions on the type of faculty that can be used .
But the mere fact that Apple separated the SSD leaves the hypothesis of someone figure out how to do a DIY SSD upgrade . It would demand figuring out what module can be used and being able to modify the accountant – not well-off labor . There ’s aKickstarterfor a Mac Studio SSD upgrade but it still requires a bit of work . It ’s unclear if these modules will work with the M4 Mac mini .
The other big Apocalypse about the Mac mini SSD is that Apple use two 128 GB NAND buffalo chip in the 256 GB SSD configuration . In the M2 Mac mini , Apple used one 256 GB NAND chip , and that hinders performance because there ’s no parallel processing as there is with two 128 GB chips . With the M3 , Apple switched to using two 128 GB flake , but the company did not liberate an M3 Mac mini .
Read : How to raise your M2 Mac mini without paying Apple ’s high prices
