@@robertp457because it’s just a matter of time before people figure out how we non tech people can do it. First, Dosdude figures out the hardest way, and then he figures out how to make it easier, then everybody else gets on the wagon.
@@robertp457 there is a company in the far east that already have a removable storage for M1 series, others coming soon (removing old NAND and soldering special connector is needed)
@@robertp457 Agreed; still a walled-garden. There's some 3rd-party folks doing good work and designing storage modules for the M4-Mini that cost way less than Apple's egregious upgrade price, but the hoops one has to go through for reasonable storage are still mind-numbing. I'll believe Apple can make a pro-consumer choice with up-gradable hardware design when I see it, and not a second sooner.
Note: Even if the storage becomes "upgradeable", they will lock them somehow behind firmware patches. They wont allow "third-party hardware" to avoid "damaging the product" as their excuse as always.
It would be great if Apple did this, there is definitely enough room in the existing models (16”, at least) for two of those M4 Pro Mac mini-style NAND modules. And yeah, if you ever look at any 14” or 16” MacBook Pro schematic, the number of BOM options is insane.
Chefs kiss… Great video to point out a win win scenario, Apple is killing it with Apple Silicon and giving the customer upgradable storage while streamlining the manufacturing would be amazing!
Apple is likely saving that for the next gen of Mac Studios...offering some level of upgradeability to their most costly models. IMO, the Cheese Grater is a goner. TB5 (and beyond) will begin to offer enough "bandwidth" to allow Pros to add external "personality cards" in an external eGPU-type box.
Having the drive controller on the SoC was some shrewd forethought by Apple, preventing anyone from upgrading the storage with an off-the-shelf NVMe drive. Even with removable storage you still have to use an Apple module, so they can keep up the ridiculous prices.
The reason is power saving. Moving the controller and cache to the SSD means all reads and write that hot cache are very low power. Means you can keep the data lanes to the SSD mostly powered down.
Great points. They reinvented the wheel :) Wondering how long will it take them to realise that with dumping the soldered RAM can further help to reduce the combinations and their cost. And then we arrived in 2012 :)
Apple saw this and was like "did somebody say reduce COST??? We're one of the richest companies in the world, and yet we still pinch pennies like Ebeneezer Scrooge"
Soldered ram is good, storage is not. A ram is a LOT more durable than a normal storage nand. And soldered ram is much faster. So I can understand that. Lots of companies are doing that not just apple. But soldering down the storage should be a crime.
I know this video is really made for a very notch audience but I am that audience and I LOVED IT! I don't know how you saw this and put the connection together. Well done!
There's an additional reason that it makes sense, especially with 256gb + unified memory. If the disk dies under warranty they have to replace the whole logic board. If the storage is removable they only have to replace that so add that on top of manufacturing simplicity and it makes sense to go back to it but hey, this is Apple. They could change their minds by next week
If the SSDs weren’t proprietary, I’d say give them a pat on the back, but they are proprietary so they should get criticized for not using standard drives. Additionally there is no reason for Apple to recreate SSD’s when the form factor and design for M.2 SSDs was finalized and available for people to buy for over a decade. Apple is saving costs by doing it this way and they aren't passing those savings to their customers. Having removable storage doesn't matter if you can't buy modules at a reasonable price. The highest spec chip isn't binned, it's a chip that met the standard.
The reason to remove pads is to avoid third party piggyback smd boards, a few of them are available from smart chinese people. There are other hardwired limitations, even on soldered nand chips, it's a very distinctive skill to be able to upgrade your macbook flash storage. Heavy desktop users.. maybe. They can really wear out NAND flash with VMs and large datasets.
This is why I like socketed memory and socketed storage, both industry standard modules. Somewhat slower. Takes up somewhat more space. So very much cheaper. 8TB M.2 SSD ~$650 on Amazon vs. 8TB Apple proprietary storage upgrade ~$2,200.
I'd say its a hard no no, apple is profiting from non upgradable stuff and storage takes a huge cake in that revenue, getting rid of it will just be a bad move from the most valuable company on earth
Ever get the feeling on YT it takes people 12 minutes to say something they could say in 1 minute? However, I do appreciate watching something with a live presenter.
I think it’d be really cool if Apple did this. At this point, these SSDs are stupid fast, so the performance loss going from soldered storage to removable modules really doesn’t make a tangible difference
Jobs hated ever bit of wasted board space. Tim's logistics mind prefers things be more unified so you can just slap different amounts on the same board. It's a bit disappointing not having that down to the centimetre level of board optimization per product.
Only reason I'm still rocking Intel Mac is extreme cost Apple charges for SSD storage, basically I refuse to pay the Apple tax to have a useful amount of storage. Sorry Apple, 256 GB was great in 2005, but not so much in 2025. If the SSD were easily user upgrade-able, like it was on Intel, then I'd finally upgrade.
WOW! What a mess!!! The other day I decided I wanted to swap out the jobs of a pair of my computers. They are both mass produced X86 mini computers with NVMe drives. All I had to do was open them both up, switch the drives, close them and start them up. Both drives had Linux on them. You can do that with Linux. You can't do it with Mac OS or Windows machines. And compared to the cost of Apple storage, both drives were ludicrously cheap to purchase!! With Apple, you're not a customer. You're an ATM. I was an exclusive Apple fan for 35+ years. Enough is enough!!
I doubt it, they make lots of money on ssd upgrades. Aftermarket options exist now for m4 mini at 1/4 cost of apple no way they will carry this over to macbook pro line
So it turns out that making the storage upgradeable actually makes manufacturing easier, proving that apple only did it to prevent user upgradiblity. And that they did it at a cost to themselves
Your different logic board hypothesis is wrong. For anyone one type of Mac, let's say 14" MBP, they should only need 2 different logic board types. This is because the there are two processor options and different sizes/pads for mounting them. The components (Processor and NAND) on the boards are added at the factory and don't cost anything to Apple except for the component added and the slight time to add it by the robots. The RAM options for the different M chips have no effect on the logic boards. The RAM is included from the factory that built the M chip. It's is an on package RAM. The reason you can't get 16GB of RAM on a M? Max is because it would increase the cost dramatically in making the chip/package to have another SKU. So, for any one specific model Apple should only have 2 versions. Each version has either an M4 Pro and the other an M4 Max.
Well, i have moved away from mac, but still i use my mac mini M1 wich is good enough for light surfing. And i have a AMD pc video editor rig for, 9950X ... and good for gaming :)
These Macs are not worth the trouble you kids put yourselves through. Owning a Mac is like living in an HOA ... why do people still do it? You're a bunch of sadists who like torturing yourselves.
Module. Two syllables. Two. Mod-ule. Rhymes with cod pool. Let's practice... Mod... You'll... Mod-you'll Mod-ule Module ... and relax ❤ Experience the calm, confidence. Module.
It's about the time EU made Apple and other manufacturers let us replace/upgrade SSD, Battery and yes, RAM. If they are not forced to do it by law, they will always find a way to prevent us from repairing and upgrading.
If course Apple will resist implementing removable storage for it will cut into their insane profits from selling storage upgrades. Apple has always been exceptionally greedy.
2027 and future is looking fresh, Robots in factorys and there all named like employees to be cute as apple does. And when you order a iphone and etc later on it will say manufactured by robot name -hopefully....
Yeah, Like I am going to pay $200 for 32gb of RAM and $600 for an SSD ?…..I had a MacBook Pro with Dual boot Windows-10 and MacOS and I ran the same benchmark apps on both Operating Systems and Windows-10 Scored Higher Benchmarks on the MacBook Pro than MacOS did ?…..So Windows-10 runs better on the MacBook Pro than MacOS.
My advice boycott apple computers till they make them fully upgradable like they were before 2013. People dont realize they get screwed by the largest company on earth.
The interesting thing apple fanboys try to find an advantage on apple modules over standard NVME devices, justifying the tenfold price in plain words why a plain PCB and a few NAND-Chips are better than a PCB, controllerchip discrete DRAM Cache and NAND Chips and no that are not magic Apple NANDS just plain industry standard. My assumption as fast as there were 3rd party storage solutions at only threefold the price, apple will find a way to prohibit the use of 3rd party modules, we will have the chance on the current Mac Minis and we will have it never again. Unfortunately i you compare the storage prices over the last decade they are consistent, we didn't get any advantage of dropping storage prices like in the real world, in apples fairytale prices are almost stable especially in that areas where the prices usually significantly drop. Perhaps the new studio will have exchangable storage boards but i think the M6 Studio will have a soldered on soulution witjh the same TB-Prices like the M1 generation even when regular storage prices has dropped to a tenth of the prices today.
Us: "Removable storage! Yes!"
Apple: "Removable? Sure. User upgradable? Hell no!"
Exactly what's the point of getting excited about removable storage when it's proprietary and you can't buy it?
@@robertp457because it’s just a matter of time before people figure out how we non tech people can do it. First, Dosdude figures out the hardest way, and then he figures out how to make it easier, then everybody else gets on the wagon.
@@robertp457 there is a company in the far east that already have a removable storage for M1 series, others coming soon (removing old NAND and soldering special connector is needed)
@@robertp457 Agreed; still a walled-garden. There's some 3rd-party folks doing good work and designing storage modules for the M4-Mini that cost way less than Apple's egregious upgrade price, but the hoops one has to go through for reasonable storage are still mind-numbing. I'll believe Apple can make a pro-consumer choice with up-gradable hardware design when I see it, and not a second sooner.
It is user upgradable but not EASILY. Needs some software which Apple provides and another Mac device
Note: Even if the storage becomes "upgradeable", they will lock them somehow behind firmware patches. They wont allow "third-party hardware" to avoid "damaging the product" as their excuse as always.
Last time i was this Early luke was still recommending intel macbooks
😆
It would be great if Apple did this, there is definitely enough room in the existing models (16”, at least) for two of those M4 Pro Mac mini-style NAND modules. And yeah, if you ever look at any 14” or 16” MacBook Pro schematic, the number of BOM options is insane.
Chefs kiss… Great video to point out a win win scenario, Apple is killing it with Apple Silicon and giving the customer upgradable storage while streamlining the manufacturing would be amazing!
I think Apple will be getting less tight on stuff like this thanks to the EU, maybe they might make MacBooks more right to repair friendly.
It is insane how much space they actually had to include an SSD module, even if not a standard NVME one.
@ yes
@@vhatega standard NVMe would draw a lot more power.
I've been subscribed for like 3 years and this is the first new video ive had in my feed in months. tf algorithm
subscription box or recommended?
@@HearMeLearn for Luke specifically and just in my browser feed when I'm logged in scrolling down.
Put in a standard M2 slot ...
Apple is likely saving that for the next gen of Mac Studios...offering some level of upgradeability to their most costly models. IMO, the Cheese Grater is a goner. TB5 (and beyond) will begin to offer enough "bandwidth" to allow Pros to add external "personality cards" in an external eGPU-type box.
Having the drive controller on the SoC was some shrewd forethought by Apple, preventing anyone from upgrading the storage with an off-the-shelf NVMe drive. Even with removable storage you still have to use an Apple module, so they can keep up the ridiculous prices.
That's the whole point. Greed abounds at Apple.
The reason is power saving. Moving the controller and cache to the SSD means all reads and write that hot cache are very low power. Means you can keep the data lanes to the SSD mostly powered down.
Great points. They reinvented the wheel :) Wondering how long will it take them to realise that with dumping the soldered RAM can further help to reduce the combinations and their cost. And then we arrived in 2012 :)
Apple saw this and was like "did somebody say reduce COST??? We're one of the richest companies in the world, and yet we still pinch pennies like Ebeneezer Scrooge"
Soldered ram is good, storage is not. A ram is a LOT more durable than a normal storage nand. And soldered ram is much faster. So I can understand that. Lots of companies are doing that not just apple. But soldering down the storage should be a crime.
@ On RAM not the durability is the main question, but the future expansion. That is critical to use a device longer.
I know this video is really made for a very notch audience but I am that audience and I LOVED IT! I don't know how you saw this and put the connection together. Well done!
“Here’s to the crazy ones”….wise words.
I guess we'll find out when the new Studio is released.
There's an additional reason that it makes sense, especially with 256gb + unified memory. If the disk dies under warranty they have to replace the whole logic board. If the storage is removable they only have to replace that so add that on top of manufacturing simplicity and it makes sense to go back to it but hey, this is Apple. They could change their minds by next week
great perspective! Luke is ahead of the game!
Favorite TH-camr out there. Keep up the great work Luke!
Thx Lukey!
Remove the 256 GB and that will reduce the number of combinations significantly.
You are totally right apple should consired what you said , May God Bless You So Much Bro
Luke is da best!
No Doubt He is the sexiest tech youtuber
Na , tech source is just 😋😋😋😋😋
MohammadAbrar you are very true
With the gayest audience
@@simsimwgay audience means tons of views.
Ok Mr.Gay
If the SSDs weren’t proprietary, I’d say give them a pat on the back, but they are proprietary so they should get criticized for not using standard drives.
Additionally there is no reason for Apple to recreate SSD’s when the form factor and design for M.2 SSDs was finalized and available for people to buy for over a decade.
Apple is saving costs by doing it this way and they aren't passing those savings to their customers.
Having removable storage doesn't matter if you can't buy modules at a reasonable price.
The highest spec chip isn't binned, it's a chip that met the standard.
The reason to remove pads is to avoid third party piggyback smd boards, a few of them are available from smart chinese people. There are other hardwired limitations, even on soldered nand chips, it's a very distinctive skill to be able to upgrade your macbook flash storage. Heavy desktop users.. maybe. They can really wear out NAND flash with VMs and large datasets.
Luke: “The module has room for only four one terabyte nands.”
DOSDude: “Hold my beer…”
🧑🏻🦯Luke Skywalker against the Empire of Apple complexity…
This is why I like socketed memory and socketed storage, both industry standard modules. Somewhat slower. Takes up somewhat more space. So very much cheaper.
8TB M.2 SSD ~$650 on Amazon vs. 8TB Apple proprietary storage upgrade ~$2,200.
I'd say its a hard no no, apple is profiting from non upgradable stuff and storage takes a huge cake in that revenue, getting rid of it will just be a bad move from the most valuable company on earth
Not really. Most people add an external driver.
Ram will cause slow downs and there’s not way around it than to just upgrade.
@Wanted797 macbooks are portable carrying bricks and dongles with you is just not it and kinda annoying if you forgot one
This could be a good sign!
I wonder what the cost differential on carrying all those MPB SKUs vs storage through a daughterboard might be...
Ever get the feeling on YT it takes people 12 minutes to say something they could say in 1 minute? However, I do appreciate watching something with a live presenter.
What was the benefit of putting the SSD controller on the SOC? Unlike the ram, there is no performance gain.
Not a bad assumption, interesting regardless, great find!
I think it’d be really cool if Apple did this. At this point, these SSDs are stupid fast, so the performance loss going from soldered storage to removable modules really doesn’t make a tangible difference
Jobs hated ever bit of wasted board space. Tim's logistics mind prefers things be more unified so you can just slap different amounts on the same board. It's a bit disappointing not having that down to the centimetre level of board optimization per product.
How about by removing the power supply we have a lot of free room to add batteries and charge it using external 12DC or adding power delivery module
Meanwhile a good 8TB NVME for a PC is $600-800. There's a reason why the M series are interesting but doubling the price for more storage is insane.
Uhhhh… the Mac Studio had upgradable storage. You could argue it was a new product category but it’s silly not to mention it at the start of the video
Only reason I'm still rocking Intel Mac is extreme cost Apple charges for SSD storage, basically I refuse to pay the Apple tax to have a useful amount of storage. Sorry Apple, 256 GB was great in 2005, but not so much in 2025. If the SSD were easily user upgrade-able, like it was on Intel, then I'd finally upgrade.
WOW! What a mess!!! The other day I decided I wanted to swap out the jobs of a pair of my computers. They are both mass produced X86 mini computers with NVMe drives. All I had to do was open them both up, switch the drives, close them and start them up. Both drives had Linux on them. You can do that with Linux. You can't do it with Mac OS or Windows machines. And compared to the cost of Apple storage, both drives were ludicrously cheap to purchase!! With Apple, you're not a customer. You're an ATM. I was an exclusive Apple fan for 35+ years. Enough is enough!!
I doubt it, they make lots of money on ssd upgrades. Aftermarket options exist now for m4 mini at 1/4 cost of apple no way they will carry this over to macbook pro line
Do I need 8 terrabytes to edit an effects heavy animated series? Or will less mem do it?
Great video.
Needs to be done asap
Are any third parties making Mac mini internal storage modules yet?
Yes, but only for the regular M4 model, not the M4 Pro. Though I’m sure that will come soon as well.
Me too. Pray...
as long as it proprietary module that only Apple produce, and it is software locked to the SOC it is not exactly upgradable
So it turns out that making the storage upgradeable actually makes manufacturing easier, proving that apple only did it to prevent user upgradiblity. And that they did it at a cost to themselves
They really only need 1 logic board! Upgradable RAM, CPU and storage.
Wow! what a research !!! May be Apple will listen your thoughts....😮😮😮😮😮
Your different logic board hypothesis is wrong. For anyone one type of Mac, let's say 14" MBP, they should only need 2 different logic board types. This is because the there are two processor options and different sizes/pads for mounting them. The components (Processor and NAND) on the boards are added at the factory and don't cost anything to Apple except for the component added and the slight time to add it by the robots. The RAM options for the different M chips have no effect on the logic boards. The RAM is included from the factory that built the M chip. It's is an on package RAM. The reason you can't get 16GB of RAM on a M? Max is because it would increase the cost dramatically in making the chip/package to have another SKU. So, for any one specific model Apple should only have 2 versions. Each version has either an M4 Pro and the other an M4 Max.
nice reasoning , the reason the old macs were popular was the upgradable elements . apple should bring that back
Carbon Neutral and We care about environment
... and with all the savings they will reduce the cost of upgrading ram... NOT
Well, i have moved away from mac, but still i use my mac mini M1 wich is good enough for light surfing.
And i have a AMD pc video editor rig for, 9950X ... and good for gaming :)
These Macs are not worth the trouble you kids put yourselves through. Owning a Mac is like living in an HOA ... why do people still do it? You're a bunch of sadists who like torturing yourselves.
please apple 🙏
Module.
Two syllables. Two.
Mod-ule.
Rhymes with cod pool.
Let's practice...
Mod...
You'll...
Mod-you'll
Mod-ule
Module
... and relax ❤
Experience the calm, confidence.
Module.
I love lamp
This gay guy is my favorite tech blogger ❤️🔥 But I wish he would make slightly longer videos
It's about the time EU made Apple and other manufacturers let us replace/upgrade SSD, Battery and yes, RAM. If they are not forced to do it by law, they will always find a way to prevent us from repairing and upgrading.
luke sexy when mad
9:36 chassys?
Sneaky: if you buy a Mac Mini, you have to buy a MacBook in order to dfu the Mac Mini… 😅
Apple would never do anything so pro consumer. What's next, usable iCloud?
Most exciting Apple “update” I have seen in 5 years.
Why? It's not as if they were selling 1TB modules for $80 or whatever the going rate for SSD's are today.
only time will tell
It always comes back around to compliance and cash flow. You do it our way and yer gonna pay for it, until we come up with the next thing.
Tim Apple needs to hire Luke Jobs
If course Apple will resist implementing removable storage for it will cut into their insane profits from selling storage upgrades. Apple has always been exceptionally greedy.
2027 and future is looking fresh,
Robots in factorys and there all named like employees to be cute as apple does.
And when you order a iphone and etc later on it will say manufactured by robot name -hopefully....
Yeah, Like I am going to pay $200 for 32gb of RAM and $600 for an SSD ?…..I had a MacBook Pro with Dual boot Windows-10 and MacOS and I ran the same benchmark apps on both Operating Systems and Windows-10 Scored Higher Benchmarks on the MacBook Pro than MacOS did ?…..So Windows-10 runs better on the MacBook Pro than MacOS.
But what kind of memory does $Helmut$Lang$ use?
My advice boycott apple computers till they make them fully upgradable like they were before 2013. People dont realize they get screwed by the largest company on earth.
When i AirPlay your videos to my AppleTV you speak in all languages but not in english! 😅
Apple might... just maybe... might... stop being arseholes. Got it.
Luke pronounces the last 'S' in "chassis". Don't trust anything this man says.
Why not? Money. They want abuse consumer, so they never change, never would do easy.
The interesting thing apple fanboys try to find an advantage on apple modules over standard NVME devices, justifying the tenfold price in plain words why a plain PCB and a few NAND-Chips are better than a PCB, controllerchip discrete DRAM Cache and NAND Chips and no that are not magic Apple NANDS just plain industry standard.
My assumption as fast as there were 3rd party storage solutions at only threefold the price, apple will find a way to prohibit the use of 3rd party modules, we will have the chance on the current Mac Minis and we will have it never again. Unfortunately i you compare the storage prices over the last decade they are consistent, we didn't get any advantage of dropping storage prices like in the real world, in apples fairytale prices are almost stable especially in that areas where the prices usually significantly drop. Perhaps the new studio will have exchangable storage boards but i think the M6 Studio will have a soldered on soulution witjh the same TB-Prices like the M1 generation even when regular storage prices has dropped to a tenth of the prices today.
First comment :D
no, it was me beating u by 4 seconds :)
@@cryptmind4202 no he is first, newest first then scroll down to bottom
just make ıt removeable
need be black have skate board wheels
eighth
best
Long-ass video for a basic speculation. Just buy a PC with as much storage (that isn't MASSIVELY MARKED UP) as you want!
this video about nothing...just bla-bla...where is solutions, how to upgrade, where to buy, what's the prices...
Its 2025 and iSheeps are still stuck at debating about SSD and RAM 😂
Just imagine if Apple wasn't greedy - we wouldn't even be talking about this 🥲