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>>> Is the RAM and SSD upgradeable? >> Nope, soldered. > Nope, in the same package as the CPU and GPU. The SSD certainly isn't in the same package as the CPU

>>> Is the RAM and SSD upgradeable? >> Nope, soldered. > Nope, in the same package as the CPU and GPU. The SSD certainly isn't in the same package as the CPU and GPU, so your comment is simply wrong, given the question that was actually asked. Whether the RAM is on-package or not is irrelevant to the question asked further upthread. It is soldered. Neither the RAM nor the SSD can realistically be upgraded after the fact. That's the answer to the question. I don't understand the purpose of your comment.

tadfisher 4y ago
The SSD controller is part of the SOC, so you're both half-right.
- coder543 4y ago
  True, but it is a rather lame excuse for soldering the SSD, considering Apple's SSDs have not really performed better than anyone else's SSDs for a long time. Moving the controller into the SoC is a cost saving measure for Apple, but none of the cost savings are passed onto the consumer. Something as huge as the Mac mini could easily have a regular m.2 NVMe socket. Apple could presumably still do their proprietary thing with direct NAND access through the same physical socket, while still letting you swap in your own SSD that brings its own controller... but this would interfere with their goal of profiting from crazy upgrade pricing. For Mac Studio, the NAND actually was socketed; it just used a proprietary connector instead of letting you bring your own SSD, so it still offered no aftermarket upgrade path to extend the life of these machines.
  - nimish 4y ago
    Integrating the ssd controller into the soc allows for it to scale with the process used for the soc and also removes what is essentially a multicore system from being an external, potentially compromised unit. This way there is never any chance unencrypted data is written to the flash. Not the best reason but it's there. Thunderbolt 4 is fast enough to attach external flash anyway.
    - coder543 4y ago
      > This way there is never any chance unencrypted data is written to the flash. That has nothing to do with the SSD controller. The OS never has to send unencrypted data to the SSD in the first place. Offloading encryption to SEDs (self encrypting drives) is probably more helpful in server environments where you have dozens of disks and mind-bogglingly large amounts of data flowing around, but SEDs are completely uninteresting for consumer applications, and if Apple is integrating the SSD controller directly into their SoC, then it's effectively no different from using an integrated crypto accelerator prior to sending data to an external SSD controller.

tadfisher 4y ago

The SSD controller is part of the SOC, so you're both half-right.

coder543 4y ago
True, but it is a rather lame excuse for soldering the SSD, considering Apple's SSDs have not really performed better than anyone else's SSDs for a long time. Moving the controller into the SoC is a cost saving measure for Apple, but none of the cost savings are passed onto the consumer. Something as huge as the Mac mini could easily have a regular m.2 NVMe socket. Apple could presumably still do their proprietary thing with direct NAND access through the same physical socket, while still letting you swap in your own SSD that brings its own controller... but this would interfere with their goal of profiting from crazy upgrade pricing. For Mac Studio, the NAND actually was socketed; it just used a proprietary connector instead of letting you bring your own SSD, so it still offered no aftermarket upgrade path to extend the life of these machines.
- nimish 4y ago
  Integrating the ssd controller into the soc allows for it to scale with the process used for the soc and also removes what is essentially a multicore system from being an external, potentially compromised unit. This way there is never any chance unencrypted data is written to the flash. Not the best reason but it's there. Thunderbolt 4 is fast enough to attach external flash anyway.
  - coder543 4y ago
    > This way there is never any chance unencrypted data is written to the flash. That has nothing to do with the SSD controller. The OS never has to send unencrypted data to the SSD in the first place. Offloading encryption to SEDs (self encrypting drives) is probably more helpful in server environments where you have dozens of disks and mind-bogglingly large amounts of data flowing around, but SEDs are completely uninteresting for consumer applications, and if Apple is integrating the SSD controller directly into their SoC, then it's effectively no different from using an integrated crypto accelerator prior to sending data to an external SSD controller.