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Kind of, they were socketed NAND cards and the controller lived on the mainboard, so as far as getting out of the problem of Apple entirely setting the prices f

by rtkwe 2y ago

Kind of, they were socketed NAND cards and the controller lived on the mainboard, so as far as getting out of the problem of Apple entirely setting the prices for everything it's not relevant. As far as I'm finding no one managed to find a way to create a compatible card to create an avenue for DIY upgrades. I've found a few upgrades but they consist of buying an entire second Mac Studio to harvest the drive from.

throwaway48476 2y ago
Giles from Polysoft is manufacturing 3rd party mac studio nand cards. There is still a problem sourcing nand because apple doesn't let the owm sell to anyone but them.
- rtkwe 2y ago
  I thought I had seen something about that but couldn't find the actual boards mentioned for sale. Sounds even worse though because it should be possible but Apple being Apple has ensured there's no source for Giles or other companies to perform repairs.
  - throwaway48476 2y ago
    There's an industry in China for desoldering and reusing apple bands. Unfortunately getting new oem nands is going to take legislation.
    - rtkwe 2y ago
      Yes, though that relies on the product being fairly popular and for the chip to be stable for a while for it to be a useful source. Mac Studio NAND chips aren't going to be readily available from them unless they happen to be a shared part from a more popular device.
      - throwaway48476 2y ago
        All macs use the same compatible nand chips.
        wtallis 2y ago
        Is there any compatibility between generations, eg. harvesting NAND from a M1 generation machine to upgrade a M3 (or now M4) generation machine?
        throwaway48476 2y ago
        As far as I'm aware, yes they're all compatible. Apples segmentation takes place in the nand firmware. The firmware contains the location in the storage configuration. And this may or may not be rewriteable. Iboffrc has done a video explaining how some of it works. It's all from reverse engineering though.

by rtkwe 2y ago

throwaway48476 2y ago

Giles from Polysoft is manufacturing 3rd party mac studio nand cards. There is still a problem sourcing nand because apple doesn't let the owm sell to anyone but them.

rtkwe 2y ago
I thought I had seen something about that but couldn't find the actual boards mentioned for sale. Sounds even worse though because it should be possible but Apple being Apple has ensured there's no source for Giles or other companies to perform repairs.
- throwaway48476 2y ago
  There's an industry in China for desoldering and reusing apple bands. Unfortunately getting new oem nands is going to take legislation.
  - rtkwe 2y ago
    Yes, though that relies on the product being fairly popular and for the chip to be stable for a while for it to be a useful source. Mac Studio NAND chips aren't going to be readily available from them unless they happen to be a shared part from a more popular device.
    - throwaway48476 2y ago
      All macs use the same compatible nand chips.
      - wtallis 2y ago
        Is there any compatibility between generations, eg. harvesting NAND from a M1 generation machine to upgrade a M3 (or now M4) generation machine?
        throwaway48476 2y ago
        As far as I'm aware, yes they're all compatible. Apples segmentation takes place in the nand firmware. The firmware contains the location in the storage configuration. And this may or may not be rewriteable. Iboffrc has done a video explaining how some of it works. It's all from reverse engineering though.