Upgrading an Apple Silicon Mac mini SSD is possible, but a slog
Owners of the M1 Mac mini can upgrade the storage, but with a tricky process involving desoldering chips, it's a difficult path that most users should avoid taking in the first place.
![Removing the old NAND chips from a Mac mini logic board [YouTube/Luke Miani]](https://photos5.appleinsider.com/gallery/55849-113436-lukemianimacmini2-xl.jpg)
Removing the old NAND chips from a Mac mini logic board [YouTube/Luke Miani]
In previous generations before Apple Silicon was introduced, Apple's design of the Mac mini allowed for various components to be changed, including storage drives. As part of Apple Silicon, Apple switched entirely over to chips soldered directly to the logic board, locking users into using a specific capacity of internal storage for the life of the Mac.
Through the use of solder, Apple does make it extremely difficult to upgrade the storage, but it's not impossible. With the right knowledge and skills, as well as the correct components and a lot of luck, a determined owner can risk their hardware making the upgrade.
In one YouTube video published on Friday by Luke Miani and with assistance from Apple enthusiast "@dosdude," the considerable effort behind such an upgrade is revealed, and it's a process that most people won't want to undertake.
The video has the aim of upgrading an M1 Mac mini from 256GB of storage and moving to 2TB of capacity. To accomplish this, the duo had to remove the existing soldered-in storage and replace them with two one-terabyte NAND chips
Disassembly of the Mac mini is relatively trivial, consisting of 13 screws and stripping off any plastic items and other removable components, in preparation for a lot of heat-based activity.
The first big obstacle is to remove an underfill layer from below the existing chips, which is a material injected underneath the chips and hardens over time. While it's already difficult enough dealing with the underfill, there are also resistors near the chips that are also embedded in the material, components that need to be kept intact and in place.
Using a special tool for scraping away and for lifting the chip, the components are blasted with hot air and eventually separated.
The new chips are reballed with solder, using a stencil and more heat, before being placed onto the board and soldered using hot air again.
![New NAND chips applied to the Mac mini logic board [YouTube/Luke Miani]](https://photos5.appleinsider.com/gallery/55849-113437-lukemianimacmini1-xl.jpg)
New NAND chips applied to the Mac mini logic board [YouTube/Luke Miani]
After a reassembly, the next step was to use Apple Configurator 2 for a restoration. However, despite trying using macOS Big Sur and other earlier editions because of the belief Apple Configurator in later IPSWs doesn't allow a restoration of blank or unprogrammed NAND, issues prevented the restoration from continuing.
As a last-ditch effort, and based on advice heard from others who have tried their own storage upgrades, the chips were swapped around. It was believed that the order the chips were lined up in on the board actually mattered to Apple's architecture, but even this failed to work.
Weeks later, the pair were armed with a new set of NAND chips, which were blank instead of being pre-programmed. The change worked, and even did so with the use of Configurator in macOS Ventura.
By the end of the video, Miani sums up the experience by confirming that it is possible to upgrade storage, and other components, in a Mac mini. However, "the skill set required to do so is way higher than in the old days where all you needed was a Phillips head screwdriver."
The storage bump is a considerable bonus for undergoing the project, especially when the chips used for the upgrade cost $100 versus the $800 extra Apple charges for going from 256GB to 2TB through its configurator. That is, of course, if you have the equipment, knowledge, and the nerve to pull it all off.
This is not Miani's first rodeo in attempting to upgrade an Apple Silicon Mac's storage, but it is a massive success for him.
In March 2022, attempts by Miani to upgrade the storage of the Mac Studio with a modular slot-based drive system failed. It was later determined that the drive modules are basically NAND chip holders without the usual onboard controller, as that component is handled in the Mac Studio itself, not on the module.
In cases where the storage chip being added to the Mac Studio was of a different capacity than what the controller expected, the mismatch would become an issue.
At the time, Miani was also advised by Genius Bar employees that the modules are serialized, and that tools are used to imprint the serial number onto replacement drives. The techs are also limited to using those tools for repairs, not for upgrades.
AppleInsider strongly advises not to go down such a risky route to upgrade a Mac mini. However, while you could pay for a storage upgrade from Apple at the time of ordering, it's also a good idea to consider using external storage options, such as a Thunderbolt storage drive, to expand the available capacity.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
And their famous motto: "Failure is always an option."
Average melting temperature of solder used in circuit boards is 361° F. A soldering iron heats up to 480°. That's enough to destroy the circuitry inside that SSD. Sure, you're taking it out and don't care (except for destroying the surrounding chips), but now you have to solder the new one in. And you have to solder not just one, but dozens of them.
This is done by robotics at the factory where they're made, that use an entirely different process to solder everything on the logic board at the same time, in less than second. Until you can buy one of those robots, your chances of success are slim and none. And Slim just left the building.
Just buy an external drive.
Over $1000 laptop or desktop died due to just SSD failure. Is this really green as Apple always claimed all their product made by recycle material but in the end they create more unnecessary.
Mac mini, Pro, Studio, Macbook Air and Pro can be user replaceable like Mac Studio Apple's own form factor SSD.
I am not asking Apple makes their computer use nVME PCI-E 4.0 or 5.0 SSD from Samsung or others.
I am asking stop create products that force consumer to choose from the purchase and stuck with SSD.
The RAM is already some what built in with chip so I don't care. the RAM rarely failed anyway. And soon or later Apple will bump base model to 16GB.
People will upgrade their computer anyway soon or later.
However don't make them force to buy new computer and can not trade in if computer not functioning as not able loading MacOS due to SSD failure.
Currently Apple only recycle it free of charge from you.
Unless Apple pay trade in not functioning computer as long as no physical damage shown at least 50% what same model functioning computer trade in price.
I am not sure why FTC does not look into this? This is more against consumer right then Microsoft and Activision merge.
I know they’ve always ripped people off with Ram and Storage configurations, but one always hopes they’ll one day become more reasonable.
As Rossman has been pointing out for ages now, Apple soldered SSD is a design defect. I agree with that opinion especially as some machines were supposedly engineered to kill the entire board when the SSD goes south and in doing so, not even allow the machine to boot from an external SSD.
Those prices are obviously US prices. I would imagine the EU pricing is way higher.
He is currently claiming he sees two or three 16 inch MBPs a day with failed SSDs.
If SSD fails which is rare, Apple will replace it under AppleCare. The faulty motherboard does not go to landfill but gets recycled by Apple. If you want a faster Mac, Apple offers trade in credit. It is literally more environmentally friendly that way.
The primary SSD drive is meant for OS, apps, and temporary storage. For long term storage, use external disks. Modern Macs has USB4 ports so the speed can go up to 5GBps (40Gbps) which is almost as fast as internal SSDs (and I don't think we even have external disks reaching that speed yet but it will).
Also, an important advice: bigger RAM means less writes/reads of SSD so a bigger RAM becomes more important than SSD size if you're a heavy user.
In short, for power users like photographers and creators should not spend money on biggest SSD (1TB is minimum, 2TB is max, more than that is a waste of money) but do spend on bigger RAM because bigger RAM means less writes/reads on SSD for swap. That will make Mac last much longer. Use external disks for long term storage.
That's literally how mine is set up and never once did I think, "Damn, it needs to get faster!" Do I need more storage? No problem, I get more external disks. And it's blazing fast. Also, faster SSD will NOT make many parts of workflow faster because a lot of data have to be processed first inside CPU before they can be used. If it takes a while to load a massive RAW file (like mine with 60MP RAW files), faster SSDs will not improve performance at all since it's CPU-bound. More time is spent in CPU processing data to be used, not in transferring the RAW file.
Faster CPUs often mean faster processing so having a M2 Studio will definitely process data faster and guess what? You have to get a new Mac. Are you going to complain that CPU should be upgradable? We had that and it never worked well - there were too many bottlenecks that it's no longer cost effective.
You're citing the opinion of a YouTube personality about the reliability of MBP SSD's. And since he has to either do this repair himself, or send it in to Apple for replacement and upcharge for it, it would cost far, far more than that $280. You have no complaint.
I can not find the equivalent of your US pricing in the EU unless it is with AppleCare+.
In that case the price might be 259€ but you would also be paying over 100€ per year on top of that (AC+) or a 299€ for a three year plan.
Totally absurd for a part that should be easier to swap out and, assuming, Louis is on the ball with his comments, the failure should not kill the rest of the board in the process (making booting off an external drive impossible).
The latest video from him on this very subject was pushed over to me by YouTube just two days ago.
Many compare Apple products (hardware) to the PC world or the Android world, sees the prices that chop shops charge in that world, and wants to Apple to set their prices accordingly, and probably thinks that the EU should mandate that Apple, do everything like the PC world and Android world, when you reach that point, it’s time to just move on app buy a PC or an Android smartphone.
Most, if not all Apple curated hardware is on another level quality wise to much of the stuff that is sold in the PC or Android world you do get what you pay for, and the introduction of the new Dell and Samsung monitors when compared to the Apple Studio Display probably shows that again (in time since it’s introduction), most of the PC world and Android world always have to compromise with cheaper material cheaper quality in a many cases bad design in a raised to the bottom.
Thanks this thread, I had a chance to look up the pricing of the Mac mini computers, and compare them to the all in one 24” iMac, and when you start configuring a Mac mini and the all-in-one iMac, the iMac or a Laptop is by far the better deal for a consumer, adding a a cheap PC monitor to the Mini is definitely a subpar Apple experience, (intentional steering by Apple?)
A M2, M3, M4 and beyond all in one iMac, of any screen size is a killer deal going into the future (if Apple offers it). Unless the Apple Vision Pro disrupts it in the future? And neither will be fixable according to the Lou iFixit scale.
IF:
the cost of a failure is [chance of failure] x [cost of repair] + [time cost of device unavailable]
AND:
the aim is to minimise the cost of a failure
THEN:
it's just as valid to reduce the chance of a failure as it is to reduce the cost of repair
It's also worth considering that the reinvention of computer timesharing (a.k.a. renting a virtual machine in the cloud) has a significant impact in the longevity of a device that you own. It allows one to ask the question "should I spend $X and Y minutes on upgrading hardware components, or just rent computing capacity for $Z/month and essentially zero minutes?" and there are certain situations where renting is not only an acceptable option but a superior option to upgrading one's own device.
So, no, not a "design defect" by any stretch of your imagination.
Then there is the issue of the design killing the entire motherboard when it fails, and then the fact that the storage is not upgradeable. Many users actually would upgrade that if it were easier. And then there is the cost issue (both at purchase and after failure). All bad.
As for failure rates, two or three a day with the same problem for one repair shop is too much. He wouldn't have made that particular claim if it wasn't indicative of something strange.
I agree that an SSD is a "consumable" component, and it will at some point run out of write cycles and become read-only (or potentially un-readable) but what is the nominal rate for the SSDs to reach that point?
My oldest SSD it the original SSD from my 2012 MacBook Pro which I upgraded in 2016 and have been using as an external drive ever since. it's now 10 years old but doesn't support SMART so I am not able to get its wear status but its still working away and not indicating any issue.
My next oldest was bought somewhere around 2012 / 2013 and has been sitting in my RAID array ever since purchase and even with all the data that must have passed through it in all these years the reported health is still 100%.
Now, I know my usage may not be typical but even if we consider it to be substantially on the low side it would suggest that in the main the SSDs being soldered are likely in to last the life of the machine for most typical uses.
And I am aware typical is difficult to define for example - I know back before cloud computing became the norm at my work for development. I was always running VMs and I would wear out external HDDs well before their manufacturer warranty so I would personally not call using a heavy use VM on an internal SSD typical usage.
So for me this comes down to two considerations:
If the reported failure rate is true, then
1. Does that indicate a quality issue with the current SSDs either defect or simply on the basis of cost (low quality or low write count variants in use)?
2. Or is this being driven by a-typical use-cases which are causing the issue?
For my sake I hope it's #2 not #1 but I haven't read or seen enough information to know.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4Pxh2khHbg
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buGOjT72XbQ
That massive MSI laptop is really, sort of, kicking Apple's ass!
*must be plugged into corded power supply, not to be run on batteries, careful about and skin contact, fan noise not optional, user upgradeable!
I think it's wonderful that a person as yourself, that barely uses any Apple products at all, is so invested in posting at AI about all of the things Apple is doing wrong with arguably the most popular notebook available to consumers.
The arrival of the M3 will be a dark day for you...
I have never used a Windows PC as a daily driver. Ever.
I use a HarmonyOS tablet plus numerous Huawei/Honor devices (wearables, Routers, Mesh Systems...)
I also have two iOS tablets at home plus my wife's iPhone. Apple TV (worst Apple device with it's absolutely stupid remote) collecting dust.
Android TV (Nvidia Shield), various Firestick etc.
You can be sure that an M3 will not make my day any darker or lighter. LOL.
Like Rossmann says, though, I do care about repairabilty and the design surrounding the concept.
From that perspective it is not acceptable that the design itself leads to the whole board dying (machine won't boot even from external storage) when the soldered on SSD dies.
Watch the video and report back.