Apple gets a lot of flak for its user-unfriendly approach to user repairs and upgrades – you can’t really do them. But there is a glimmer of hope with the new Mac mini that started shipping Friday.
In a teardown posted on X, ohgkg shows that the Mac mini’s SSD is on a separate board instead of integrated into the M4 chip.
Partial disassembly of the M4 Mac Mini / with 16 GB of RAM and 256 GB of SSD. Interesting revelation [stet]: Wifi chip and antenna on the back of the lower air intake. SSD on a daughter card. And even the base 256 GB version comes in two chips. No compromise on speed. Theoretically also upgradable by the end user.
ohgkg via X, November 8, 2024
On X, L0vertodream also posted a teardown of the Mac mini on X. L0vetodream specifies that “it is indeed a 1-slot dual slot with a maximum particle size of 1TB.” It uses BGA315 hard disk and the maximum upgrade capacity can be up to 2T” (translated).
This SSD configuration is similar to the Mac Studio, which also has separate SSD modules. Ars Technica points out that Apple’s implementation is not like that of Windows PCs where the SSD controller is contained with the SSD hardware. Apple’s SSD controller is built into the M-series chip. For this reason, you can’t simply replace the SSD in the Mac Studio or Mac mini with a part purchased from Amazon or a computer store. There are other reasons why commercially available components don’t work, such as the possibility that the Mac’s SSD slots have restrictions on the types of modules that can be used.
But the simple fact that Apple separated the SSD leaves it open for someone to figure out how to do a DIY SSD upgrade. This would involve determining which modules can be used and being able to modify the controller, which is not an easy task to achieve. There is a Kickstarter for 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 reveal about the Mac mini SSD is that Apple uses two 128GB NAND chips in the 256GB SSD configuration. In the Mac mini M2, Apple used one 256GB NAND chip, which hurts performance because there is no parallel processing as is the case with two 128 GB chips. With the M3, Apple opted for two 128 GB chips, but the company has not released of Mac mini M3.
Read our in-depth review of the M3 Pro Mac mini.
