5 ms·

No More Storage Limits: M.2 Adapter for Apple's M1 MacBooks [video]

78 points by elisaado 2y ago

cf100clunk 2y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41971060 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41971060
fourfour3 2y ago
Worth noting - this is not a m.2 adapter, you couldn't use it to attach standard drives. This is an adapter for fitting proprietary flash cards with NAND on.
- jdboyd 2y ago
  The follow up video does note that.
  - fourfour3 2y ago
    The video is fine, the title doesn’t mention m.2 at all :)
godelski 2y ago
1) I really like that there's a lot more high technical skill videos coming out (I can link a few if others are interested and maybe we could grow a list?) 2) Apple makes a big stink about their carbon footprint and sustainability. It is on every product page. But Apple products are not very sustainable when you consider beyond materials. Remember it is "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" (there's 3 arrows on the recycle symbol for a reason!), and I'm concerned that a lot of the focus for green stuff has shifted to only the last R. They're big fighters against the Right To Repair, meaning, they are against Reduce. They also really lock down the OS (especially on iPhones) meaning it is difficult to Reuse. I am a bit of a hypocrite, as I'm now mostly on Apple (Air for laptop, switched to iPhone this month, but main machine is Linux). I switched because privacy, but I'm also mad about this loss (I felt that they have won, especially with overcharging...): But my old laptops? They become servers or machines I give to others. My old phones? Same thing. Your old phone is probably more powerful than a raspberry pi and comes with a battery backup, microphone, camera, and other things you might want. This is the __Reuse__ part of all of this. Here's the thing Apple: - If you want to "go green" you need the other R's. Reduce and Reuse matter MORE than recycling! - If you want better products, stop blocking power users That second point is tied in, and important for the reuse aspect. And you know what? I'm willing to bet that if Apple does this, they would actually make more money (as the video joked about). Because this is a big reason people turned to Apple in the first place. Because the machines lasted longer, people were willing to pay more. Programmers preferred them because they were the most linux like. You were the first trillion dollar company, the first 2 trillion dollar company, and the first 3 trillion dollar company. But you're losing your place. It's time to think different.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- MatekCopatek 2y ago
  They don't want to "go green", they want to maximize profits, as any other corporation. They just need to have a good enough reputation to make sure environmentally-conscious people don't boycott their products. Anything more than that would have a negative effect on their bottom line, so you can be sure they're not going to do it. Small companies like Framework and Fairphone proved that you can make very repairable and reusable laptops and phones without sacrificing much in the way of form factor (since this used to be the biggest excuse). I think it's safe to say big manufacturers won't follow suit unless forced by legislation.
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    Even Thinkpads can be customisable without form factor compromise.
  - godelski 2y ago
    > They just need to have a good enough reputation to make sure environmentally-conscious people don't boycott their products. And what do you think happens when people spread messages like mine? Change the tides and they follow. It isn't futile because as you said, they need enough reputation. They don't want the negative effect on their bottom line. So maybe instead of "correcting" me, push it too. They seem to benefit more from your comment than we do, despite you seeming to agree with the sentiment.
    - gtvwill 2y ago
      Lol you talk the talk but don't walk the walk. You said it yourself, you might tell people they aren't green but you still mostly use their products. This is what most folks do. They say their all for the green movement, but they don't actually live up to it and try and brush the action side off to someone else. It's like nimbyism but for tech. What's more important? Your perceived personal privacy benefits or the future of the planet? At the moment your living for you and not for the future.
dlevine 2y ago
This is super impressive! It's a cool POC, although it is already clear that it would be feasible for Apple to put M.2 slots in Macbooks if they wanted to. I wonder how much it would cost to have someone replace the BGA NAND chips in my Macbook. Apple charges $6-800 for a 2TB upgrade for a Macbook (depending on whether it's a 250 or 500GB drive originally). Someone would have to be able to do it for like $2-300 for it to be a feasible upgrade, especially considering that my warranty would be void. I assume there are people overseas who could do it cheaply. I assume it would be fairly quick for someone who knows what they are doing.
- jdboyd 2y ago
  There are already people doing M1 (and newer) flash upgrades by de-soldering the old flash chips and putting in new ones. I don't know the price, but potentially this kit could take out some of the steps and special hardware (involving USB flash adapters and a separate PC) required to do the job (by have the removable part already configured), and while it won't reduce the difficulty in removing the old chips without damaging the motherboard, potentially it could be easier to solder in place than the new flash chips (although I'd call that a big maybe). I'll be waiting until I see someone else using the kit before getting to excited though. What I'm immediately looking forward to is someone making after market flash modules for the M4 mini, which uses a proprietary card format similar (but not compatible) with the Mac Studio (which does have after market cards available now).
- teaearlgraycold 2y ago
  Consider that by the time you’ve ran out of storage you may have also ran out of your warranty.
- sroussey 2y ago
  M.2 slots? M.2 SSDs have drive controllers on them, but in the Apple Silicon world, those controllers are integrated in the SoC. They should absolutely not reuse the slot type for incompatible products. They should make one though, their storage offerings are lame.
bastard_op 2y ago
Ok, so you upgraded the storage, but most of these as well use soldered memory too, not to mention a _lot_ of these ship with _only_ base 8gb of ram. I imagine they'll run out of ram at some point, when apple will deprecate even m1-3 "low-end" 8gb macs to obscurity with the intel variants now that their low-end is 16gb. How much is too much to upgrade a system vs replacing it and paying more apple tax? Better ROI making them run linux in a less-needy desktop environment than trying to keep them usable as a mac with macos.
- FlyingAvatar 2y ago
  I agree with your sentiment and wanted to point out that for the RAM it's even worse than the storage. The RAM is not soldered on the board, its included in the package with the CPU, which makes upgrading the RAM effectively impossible for these machines.
  - simondotau 2y ago
    No, the storage is worse, because there’s no reason why they couldn’t include a standard 2230 M.2 slot on all their motherboards, for anyone who wanted to upgrade. The fixed RAM is annoying, but is done to make the product better — the packaging allows the RAM to be significantly faster than otherwise. It’s a major reason why the M-series CPU and GPU performs so well. It’s the same reason why you don’t see slotted RAM on GPUs. The performance penalty would be great enough that nobody would buy them.
    - pathartl 2y ago
      I think when they moved to the M series they had trouble providing enough PCIe lanes. Not that I ever really trust Apple to ever offer non-proprietary storage again, but moving the storage controller to the SoC probably avoids any PCIe support they'd have to think about.
      - my123 2y ago
        Communication from the in-SoC NAND controllers to the NAND chips themselves is done through PCIe AFAIK
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

78 points by elisaado 2y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41971060 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41971060

Worth noting - this is not a m.2 adapter, you couldn't use it to attach standard drives. This is an adapter for fitting proprietary flash cards with NAND on.

jdboyd 2y ago
The follow up video does note that.
- fourfour3 2y ago
  The video is fine, the title doesn’t mention m.2 at all :)

godelski 2y ago

1) I really like that there's a lot more high technical skill videos coming out (I can link a few if others are interested and maybe we could grow a list?) 2) Apple makes a big stink about their carbon footprint and sustainability. It is on every product page. But Apple products are not very sustainable when you consider beyond materials. Remember it is "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" (there's 3 arrows on the recycle symbol for a reason!), and I'm concerned that a lot of the focus for green stuff has shifted to only the last R. They're big fighters against the Right To Repair, meaning, they are against Reduce. They also really lock down the OS (especially on iPhones) meaning it is difficult to Reuse. I am a bit of a hypocrite, as I'm now mostly on Apple (Air for laptop, switched to iPhone this month, but main machine is Linux). I switched because privacy, but I'm also mad about this loss (I felt that they have won, especially with overcharging...): But my old laptops? They become servers or machines I give to others. My old phones? Same thing. Your old phone is probably more powerful than a raspberry pi and comes with a battery backup, microphone, camera, and other things you might want. This is the __Reuse__ part of all of this. Here's the thing Apple: - If you want to "go green" you need the other R's. Reduce and Reuse matter MORE than recycling! - If you want better products, stop blocking power users That second point is tied in, and important for the reuse aspect. And you know what? I'm willing to bet that if Apple does this, they would actually make more money (as the video joked about). Because this is a big reason people turned to Apple in the first place. Because the machines lasted longer, people were willing to pay more. Programmers preferred them because they were the most linux like. You were the first trillion dollar company, the first 2 trillion dollar company, and the first 3 trillion dollar company. But you're losing your place. It's time to think different.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
MatekCopatek 2y ago
They don't want to "go green", they want to maximize profits, as any other corporation. They just need to have a good enough reputation to make sure environmentally-conscious people don't boycott their products. Anything more than that would have a negative effect on their bottom line, so you can be sure they're not going to do it. Small companies like Framework and Fairphone proved that you can make very repairable and reusable laptops and phones without sacrificing much in the way of form factor (since this used to be the biggest excuse). I think it's safe to say big manufacturers won't follow suit unless forced by legislation.
- pjmlp 2y ago
  Even Thinkpads can be customisable without form factor compromise.
- godelski 2y ago
  > They just need to have a good enough reputation to make sure environmentally-conscious people don't boycott their products. And what do you think happens when people spread messages like mine? Change the tides and they follow. It isn't futile because as you said, they need enough reputation. They don't want the negative effect on their bottom line. So maybe instead of "correcting" me, push it too. They seem to benefit more from your comment than we do, despite you seeming to agree with the sentiment.
  - gtvwill 2y ago
    Lol you talk the talk but don't walk the walk. You said it yourself, you might tell people they aren't green but you still mostly use their products. This is what most folks do. They say their all for the green movement, but they don't actually live up to it and try and brush the action side off to someone else. It's like nimbyism but for tech. What's more important? Your perceived personal privacy benefits or the future of the planet? At the moment your living for you and not for the future.

dlevine 2y ago

This is super impressive! It's a cool POC, although it is already clear that it would be feasible for Apple to put M.2 slots in Macbooks if they wanted to. I wonder how much it would cost to have someone replace the BGA NAND chips in my Macbook. Apple charges $6-800 for a 2TB upgrade for a Macbook (depending on whether it's a 250 or 500GB drive originally). Someone would have to be able to do it for like $2-300 for it to be a feasible upgrade, especially considering that my warranty would be void. I assume there are people overseas who could do it cheaply. I assume it would be fairly quick for someone who knows what they are doing.

jdboyd 2y ago
There are already people doing M1 (and newer) flash upgrades by de-soldering the old flash chips and putting in new ones. I don't know the price, but potentially this kit could take out some of the steps and special hardware (involving USB flash adapters and a separate PC) required to do the job (by have the removable part already configured), and while it won't reduce the difficulty in removing the old chips without damaging the motherboard, potentially it could be easier to solder in place than the new flash chips (although I'd call that a big maybe). I'll be waiting until I see someone else using the kit before getting to excited though. What I'm immediately looking forward to is someone making after market flash modules for the M4 mini, which uses a proprietary card format similar (but not compatible) with the Mac Studio (which does have after market cards available now).
teaearlgraycold 2y ago
Consider that by the time you’ve ran out of storage you may have also ran out of your warranty.
sroussey 2y ago
M.2 slots? M.2 SSDs have drive controllers on them, but in the Apple Silicon world, those controllers are integrated in the SoC. They should absolutely not reuse the slot type for incompatible products. They should make one though, their storage offerings are lame.

bastard_op 2y ago

Ok, so you upgraded the storage, but most of these as well use soldered memory too, not to mention a _lot_ of these ship with _only_ base 8gb of ram. I imagine they'll run out of ram at some point, when apple will deprecate even m1-3 "low-end" 8gb macs to obscurity with the intel variants now that their low-end is 16gb. How much is too much to upgrade a system vs replacing it and paying more apple tax? Better ROI making them run linux in a less-needy desktop environment than trying to keep them usable as a mac with macos.

FlyingAvatar 2y ago
I agree with your sentiment and wanted to point out that for the RAM it's even worse than the storage. The RAM is not soldered on the board, its included in the package with the CPU, which makes upgrading the RAM effectively impossible for these machines.
- simondotau 2y ago
  No, the storage is worse, because there’s no reason why they couldn’t include a standard 2230 M.2 slot on all their motherboards, for anyone who wanted to upgrade. The fixed RAM is annoying, but is done to make the product better — the packaging allows the RAM to be significantly faster than otherwise. It’s a major reason why the M-series CPU and GPU performs so well. It’s the same reason why you don’t see slotted RAM on GPUs. The performance penalty would be great enough that nobody would buy them.
  - pathartl 2y ago
    I think when they moved to the M series they had trouble providing enough PCIe lanes. Not that I ever really trust Apple to ever offer non-proprietary storage again, but moving the storage controller to the SoC probably avoids any PCIe support they'd have to think about.
    - my123 2y ago
      Communication from the in-SoC NAND controllers to the NAND chips themselves is done through PCIe AFAIK

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]