Hack upgrades Mac Studio internal SSD for less than half of Apple's prices

AppleInsider

All it takes is cracking open your Mac Studio and voiding your warranty, but it's been proven that you can upgrade to 8TB SSD for less than half what Apple charges.

Upgrading Mac Studio -- image credit: Polysoft

Now may not be the best time to buy a Mac Studio, since it's likely that an M5 version may be just a few months away. But it is never, not ever, the right time to pay Apple's SSD upgrade prices because they are so very much overpriced.

You just may not have to. We'll have to see what happens when this gets out into the hands of more users, but a successful Kickstarter campaign by Polysoft was offering SSD upgrades for both the M1 and M2 models of the Mac Studio.

This looks like the same upgrade that YouTuber dosdude1 did in August 2024. In that case, the upgrade used Polysoft's recommended solution, but it required precise and skillful soldering.

Since then, Polysoft launched its Kickstarter campaign for pre-built SSD upgrade cards. They could then be slotted into the Mac Studio directly, with little expertise and confidence.

It's a fascinating piece of work by French firm Polysoft, but you just want to know what it costs. Unfortunately, that's where there may be a problem -- for now, the campaign is over and there isn't a way to buy the upgrade.

But, ordinarily a Kickstarter campaign is followed by a regular sale of whatever has been created. It'll be at a higher price than the Kickstarter backers paid, but at present the makers have not said whether that will happen, or what pricing will be.

So you may be tantalized and disappointed. But if you had been able to get in on the Kickstarter, you could have bought 2TB for about $340.

A 4TB upgrade was offered for $865. The maximum 8TB upgrade, the one you want, was around $1,015 for the M1 Mac Studio, or $950 for the M2.

Just for comparison, if you bought the SSD upgrade from Apple at time of purchasing the Mac Studio, you'd have paid such a lot more. Apple's price for 2TB is $600, for 4TB is $1,200, and for 8TB it's $2,400.

How it works

There are full details on the Kickstarter campaign page of how Polysoft created a replacement SSD that would work with the Mac Studio, and to say it was painstaking is about right. It included sanding down Apple-made upgrade boards to determine just how they were made.

It's that level of detailed work that made the difference, say the makers. They point out that others have tried to upgrade the Mac Studio and failed, while their version has been in use with creatives across France.

What they made was a circuit board that houses the SSD, and matches Apple's own system. Users who cracked open their Mac Studio could then pull out Apple's SSD board, and plug in Polysoft's replacement.

It's not possible to keep whatever SSD Apple installed. And the makers say only the same size SSDs that Apple sells will work, so you can't have a 3TB drive for instance.

What's not clear is quite what users do after installing the drive. The drives are presumably empty so users have to get macOS onto it, and maybe format the drives.

Risks versus rewards

So getting the new SSD up and running in a Mac Studio might be fiddly. The fact that you have to open the Mac Studio's case could be off-putting - although once you remove the rubber base, the case just uses regular screws.

And then there's the fact that Apple is hardly going to encourage you. Addressing the question of whether this voids the warranty, the makers say "technically no, legally yes."

It comes down to how you are not using Apple parts in your upgrading of the Mac Studio. That's enough that Apple will probably refuse to make any repairs.

The price is cheap compared to Apple, but it's a long way from being a casual purchase you can chalk up to experience. But, come on. It's 8TB for the less than Apple would charge you for 4TB.

Hold that thought

It is true that, at time of writing, the Kickstarter campaign is over. The company raised three times its hoped-for amount and took in $97,000. Then it's also true that the makers have not announced plans to sell more following the end of the campaign.

However, there is a further possibility that is going to make you sit up.

"It's still a little early to say for sure," write the makers on their campaign page, "but we'll most likely be launching another campaign for SSD modules for Mac mini M4 and M4 Pro when we will have a working prototype for those models!"

Just note that as well as voiding the warranty on any of these Macs, you're never going to get AppleCare coverage once you've done this.



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timpetus

I'm guessing it wouldn't be possible to swap back to the original Apple SSD then? I always swapped the original RAM into my 27" iMacs before taking them in to Apple, not because it voided the warranty but because it was one less thing they could use to give a PEBKAC diagnosis.

Mike Wuerthele

timpetus said:

I'm guessing it wouldn't be possible to swap back to the original Apple SSD then? I always swapped the original RAM into my 27" iMacs before taking them in to Apple, not because it voided the warranty but because it was one less thing they could use to give a PEBKAC diagnosis.

Should be. Just another Configurator run.

muadibe

Is M5 a typo? All the other reports I’ve seen have said M4.

saarek

You’ll have to bear in mind that Apple pays no where near retail prices. 

So, when they say that you can upgrade the storage for less than half what Apple charges they’re absolutely correct. 

At the same time Apple must have a 300-400% mark up on the storage, same for the Ram.

This is the bit that I hate about Apple, the pure avarice and greed at the expense of their users. 

In the past Apple memory upgrades were always a rip off, but they were partly held in check by the fact that users could upgrade themselves or get a third party to do it. Now though, Apple knows they have you by the short and curlies and they fuck you over as hard as they can.

Apple deserves to make a healthy profit from their work and investment. They used to have envious looks from the likes of Dell, with margins of 35-40%. Tim Cook must be practically orgasming over the 100%+ markup they have to be on today.

mikethemartian

saarek said:

You’ll have to bear in mind that Apple pays no where near retail prices. 

So, when they say that you can upgrade the storage for less than half what Apple charges they’re absolutely correct. 

At the same time Apple must have a 300-400% mark up on the storage, same for the Ram.

This is the bit that I hate about Apple, the pure avarice and greed at the expense of their users. 

In the past Apple memory upgrades were always a rip off, but they were partly held in check by the fact that users could upgrade themselves or get a third party to do it. Now though, Apple knows they have you by the short and curlies and they fuck you over as hard as they can.

Apple deserves to make a healthy profit from their work and investment. They used to have envious looks from the likes of Dell, with margins of 35-40%. Tim Cook must be practically orgasming over the 100%+ markup they have to be on today.

Even if you want to pay Apple for the upgrade they won’t do it and will make you buy a whole new machine unless you paid the premium for a Mac Pro.

danox

So cancel your warranty and your resale value on a $4000 Studio Mac Ultra to get a few extra terabytes from a company that may or may not be around to stand by their work, there is a very good reason why Apple computers have a higher resale value (genuine parts) used and one of those reasons is that you don’t have to worry about various chop shops working on the computer.

Rogue01

Since Apple appears to be moving back to socketed storage, likely to reduce their repair costs - since soldered parts means replacing the entire motherboard, they really need to dump that secure enclave encryption of the SSD so consumers can go back to upgrading their own storage, and it would be great if they would do the same with the memory too.  It is highway robbery with their insanely excessive mark ups for memory and SSD.  Sorry, but 256GB and 512GB is useless storage.  The Macs should be 1TB standard and not charge $2400 for 8TB storage when you can get an 8TB NVMe PCIe4 stick for about $650.

Apple threw a fit and refused to replace the swollen battery and top cover in my 2015 MacBook Pro because I installed an OWC 2TB SSD.  I had to reinstall the 1TB Apple SSD for them to do the battery replacement, or they were going to charge me $1200 for the 1TB SSD.  I told them, since when did upgrading storage prevent them from replacing an item that was completely unrelated.  They refused to budge so I reinstalled the 1TB SSD.  Then I reinstalled the 2TB SSD when I got the Mac back.  They never used to be like that with the Power Macs when you can self install 4 hard drives.

jeffharris

OK, Apple’s RAM and SSD prices are expensive, but if you want or need more RAM and more internal storage, especially with a MacBook Pro, you have NO choice but to pay up. 

Complaining about it is like buying a BMW or Mercedes and complaining about the price of parts. Buy a Honda.

My last MacBook Pro had a 2TB SSD. It drove me crazy. I was constantly off-loading stuff to keep enough free space for Mac OS virtual memory. 10% is recommended as a minimum free space. Without doing that it would slow down. A lot!

I already store my ever-expanding Music Library (about 700GB) and photographs and project archive on an external RAID, but I can’t carry that with me.

When I got an M3 Max MBP last winter, I maxed out the RAM and got a 4TB SSD. 

Now there’s NO file wrangling to maintain free space. More RAM and storage allow for more longevity, too.

Expensive? YEP. But I tend to keep my Macs for about 5 years and resale is generally quite good, too.

Would I like to be able to do my own RAM and storage upgrades without voiding AppleCare, like back in the day?

Hell, yeah! But that ain’t happening anytime soon.

beowulfschmidt

This will probably be less attractive for the next Mac Studio, since the probability it will not have TB5 is indistinguishable from zero, making the connection to a fast SSD cheap and simple.  There will probably still be use cases for replacing the internal storage, but I suspect they'll be less compelling.

quakerotis

You do not need to maximize the internal storage of your M series machine.

You can get 2 TB of Thunderbolt 4 storage for around $225.00. Mine is M2 based and is velcroed to the case cover of my Maq M1 machine 

I can edit 4k video just fine. 

The idea that you need to upgrade storage beyond 1TB internal is not a good investment at all.

quakerotis

danox said:

So cancel your warranty and your resale value on a $4000 Studio Mac Ultra to get a few extra terabytes from a company that may or may not be around to stand by their work, there is a very good reason why Apple computers have a higher resale value (genuine parts) used and one of those reasons is that you don’t have to worry about various chop shops working on the computer.

Maybe when your warranty has expired

apple4thewin

quakerotis said:

danox said:

So cancel your warranty and your resale value on a $4000 Studio Mac Ultra to get a few extra terabytes from a company that may or may not be around to stand by their work, there is a very good reason why Apple computers have a higher resale value (genuine parts) used and one of those reasons is that you don’t have to worry about various chop shops working on the computer.

Maybe when your warranty has expired

In theory if you resell it with an 4+ tb it would be worth more right?

danox

apple4thewin said:

quakerotis said:

danox said:

So cancel your warranty and your resale value on a $4000 Studio Mac Ultra to get a few extra terabytes from a company that may or may not be around to stand by their work, there is a very good reason why Apple computers have a higher resale value (genuine parts) used and one of those reasons is that you don’t have to worry about various chop shops working on the computer.

Maybe when your warranty has expired

In theory if you resell it with an 4+ tb it would be worth more right?

Only if you can pawn it off on someone (a dummy) who doesn’t ask for the original bill of sale, private party I would ask to see it as a matter of fact and I would expect that piece of paper to be transferred over to me and when I see that they’ve had a hatchet job done to it, I would walk away no sale….

mikethemartian

danox said:

So cancel your warranty and your resale value on a $4000 Studio Mac Ultra to get a few extra terabytes from a company that may or may not be around to stand by their work, there is a very good reason why Apple computers have a higher resale value (genuine parts) used and one of those reasons is that you don’t have to worry about various chop shops working on the computer.

Any electronic component supplier that sells NANDs is going to provide the data sheet for the component which you are unlikely to get from Apple for the custom NANDs they use.

atonaldenim

Glad you covered this project, it mostly got missed by the Apple news ecosystem. Hopefully the early adopters of these Mac Studio storage upgrades will find that it does work well, some of the skeptics can be reassured, and the Mac Mini version they're working on next will get even more attention.

Personally I've upgraded the RAM and SSD in basically every Mac I've ever owned that allowed it, and it's always been a very positive experience for me, and that's mostly been buying used PC parts on eBay, never something officially Apple-branded and usually not even specifically designed for Macs. I've even upgraded the CPUs in old Mac Pros, the ability to do DIY upgrades long after purchase can keep older machines useful for many more years. I really look forward to improving the future upgradeability of Apple Silicon Macs, as their great performance should mean they could remain useful for at least a decade, if not two.

In this particular case, the fact that the Apple Silicon will remain the SSD controller "brains" and the storage upgrades are just "dumb" NAND storage chips that are controlled by the Apple chips, this seems like it should be an even more foolproof piece of hardware. All previous Mac SSD upgrades prior to Apple Silicon used their own SSD controller chips not made by Apple, and they mostly worked well nevertheless. For the 10+ years of SATA to AHCI to NVMe generations of SSD hardware, "just put an SSD in it" was the default advice given for how to breathe new life into an old Mac. Let's hope that "just put a bigger SSD in it" can continue to be good advice for the next 10 years!

dewme

I think Apple has a ton of sales data that tells them how every possible configuration of each product sells. They probably also have a good understanding of their users and factors that compel users to buy the higher and lower priced configurations. 

For example, if someone is using a Mac for business purposes the high cost of memory and storage isn’t as big a deal because their Mac are machines that help them make more money. If time is money spending more money up front for a machine that saves you time is worth it. Plus, businesses can depreciate the cost of their computers over a short period of time. 

Whether we like it or not Apple seems to be saying that their customers are buying the machines that they need.  Otherwise we wouldn’t be buying something that doesn’t meet their needs, especially when we’ve known for years that Apple isn’t selling computers that can be upgraded via the plug-in methods that used to be common, but is no longer an option other than with what Apple considers unsupported hacks. 

Alex_V

Once Apple began to build SOCs with soldered RAM and SSDs, I suspect that it made logistics and warehousing that much more complicated. It means that Apple must predict how many PCs of each specification it must manufacture prior to the machines being purchased, and the entire logistics and warehousing chain (including stores) must be stocked with the different permutations of machines. Some models are special order, but its a trade off as waiting lists lose customers. Holding all that stock is expensive. And it is the downside of soldered RAM and CCDs, that have obvious performance upsides. Therefore, I guess that if Apple can offer upgradable storage in some of their PCs (like the Mac Mini), it will remove one permutation and allow them to hold stock in a warehouse and upgrade the SSD storage in an individual machine as the order comes in. If they also allow users to upgrade storage later through authorised service centres, that might mitigate the criticism they’re getting for their pricing. (Although I read somewhere that their prices are comparable to other OEMs.) 

ITGUYINSD

Not sure about other states (or countries) but (in California) upgrading a removable part in a computer does not invalidate the warranty unless the process or part you used caused the damage/failure.  So if I upgrade my SSD in a PC and then months later a RAM module goes bad, my warranty is not invalid and the manufacturer is still on the hook for repairing the RAM failure.  

NYC362

muadibe said:

Is M5 a typo? All the other reports I’ve seen have said M4.

Not necessarily.   If Apple waits until WWDC to introduce new Studios, they just might be M5 processors.  By that point, the M4 would be a year old.

Personally, I think they should be getting new Studios out the door like. yesterday.  We no idea what might happen with import tariffs at this point. But if they do come, Apple products will get a lot more expensive...unless Tim "Apple" can convince Donald to make an exception.

cpsro

So... no chance for a 12TB or 16TB then.