Apple @lemmy.world DJDarren @thelemmy.club 2w ago

[Snazzy Labs] The $600 Mac Mini is a Steal—Until It’s a Scam

I remember in 2007, buying my first MacBook. It came with an enormous 2gb of RAM. I asked about upgrading it. The guy leaned in conspiratorially and told me that Apple's RAM upgrades were a rip-off, and that I'd be better of buying it elsewhere. So I did, for half of what Apple were asking.

This is a grift that Apple have had for far too long, and there's a part of me that's convinced that their move to soldered RAM was to stop people upgrading after the fact more than it was about SOC efficiencies.

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Tl;dw Default config is 16gb ram, 256gb ssd
32gb ram is 450$ upgrade, 2tb ssd is 800$ Amazon prices are 120-150$ for 64gb ram or 2tb nvme ssd

So maxing out both costs 1250 for a ~300$ (retail) upgrade, if that were possible.
- ~~It might be possible. The mini uses socketed ram, though the connector is revoltingly proprietary.~~
  
  Ram is on the soc, the SSD isn't really an SSD. It's just nand chips on a pcb. The controller is on the soc.
  
  It does make me wonder what value there might be in a third party offering, tied with a local repair shop who have a Mac running Sequoia that can be used to restore it. Assuming the boards are reasonably easy to produce (easy for someone who is able to do that kind of thing), it’d be pretty straightforward to take your Mac in to a shop to have it restored.
  
  The boards are already in production by some company iirc. Dosdude1 on YouTube did some upgrades on various M series machines
  
  The boards that dosdude1 used are specific to Mac Studio. The mini M4 and M4 pro model each use their own unique nand board.
  
  I see. Which is unfortunate but at least there's a starting point
  
  It is unfortunate. However he confirmed that you can upgrade with blank NANDS if you can solder.
  
  You’re right. I was thinking of the SSD.

33 comments