iFixit Tears Down Mac Studio and Studio Display

[deconstruct60]

Hopefully Apple allows storage upgrades in the future- and I think this confirms the Mac Pro will at least allow storage upgrades. A step in the right direction for Apple!

The current Mac Pro with a T2 chip basically functions the same way. Cannot put two '1' modules into a single system. have to DFU from a second Mac to do an "upgrade". There isn't much "new direction" here. Mac Pro parts came after supply catch up with demand. But the Studio is marked by Apple as "User not accessible". So not particularly good expectation management to suggest they are going to do a 180 degree turn here. Probably not.

As for the future. Apple didn't do much to apply this DIY upgrade parts supply chain for the iMac Pro. [ These NAND daughter card scheme first appeared almost 5 years ago and yet folks keep acting like Apple did something 'new' in 2019 and 2022. ] The glue locking down the rubber strip protecting the case screws is suggestive they aren't going to do parts for Studio . The Studio seems more likely to get treated like the iMac Pro 2017 than the Mac Pro 2019 . [ even more so since Apple is treating it as an iMac replacement for the moment. ]

Long term still only have the initial SSD controller ( embedded in the M1-series SoC). Not particularly likely that its ability to deal with later gen NAND chips will surface... So will increasingly will be limited to NAND daughter cards that Apple won't make in high volume in the distant future.

 

[derekamoss]

I do believe this might be the one time I've seen Apple but thinness as a top priority...

 

[deconstruct60]

Ok so the storage is replaceable and upgradeable. They just haven’t worked out how to upgrade it yet because it doesn’t work like the old PC architecture does.

I bet this will be nailed within a month or so and/or apple will start selling self repair parts under their new scheme so you can do this yourself.

The Mac Pro 2019 has a upgrade process via DFU and the T2 . There is nothing revolutionary new here. In fact, apparently same issue that two '1' NAND modules don't work ( only work in '1' slot) as the Mac Pro .

It’ll be something as trivial as blowing away some keys in the Secure Enclave for the connected device and rekeying the disk. Similar to our Thales cryptos.

There isn't really "trivial". The non-iBoot Mac specific boot firmware is on the drive. If toss access to that key then the whole Mac won't boot anymore. Doing a DFU via Configurator on a 2nd Mac is going to be tough if only have one Mac handy. Furthermore have ot back up data and do a complete data restore after "blow away the key". It isn't a moon landing project, but it will take substantive amounts of time.

 

[mikethemartian]

Pros don't work on their own machines. They use them, and replace when the time comes. Any issues are handled under warranty.

iFixit needs to adjust their definitions.

If using a particular device is your bread and butter you don’t want to wait days for some service rep to fix it if it is something you can do yourself in a couple of hours.

 

[BigMac?]

I thought the confirmation was that it was replaceable, not upgradeable.

Seems like a matter of software, not hardware.

 

[jakey rolling]

...also wrap it up in a story about how it benefits you as well.

We have a name for stories like that. It's called "fiction".

 

[montuori]

If using a particular device is your bread and butter you don’t want to wait days for some service rep to fix it if it is something you can do yourself in a couple of hours.

If using a particular device is your bread and butter, you have a well tested backup plan. Having a warm standby Studio (or whatever) on hand is far more cost effective than spending time futzing with the internals of some computer. As the old saying goes "if it's under warranty, it's not broken."

 

[jakey rolling]

Pros don't work on their own machines. They use them, and replace when the time comes. Any issues are handled under warranty.

When your definition of "Pro" is "graphic designer who uses only Apple products", then yeah - those "pros" tend to not work on their own machines. Because Apple took that choice away from them long ago. On the other hand, there are plenty of other pros out there who do either upgrade their own machines, or hire technicians to do so for them, and do so quite often. Because there are some computer parts that pros rely on (such as RAM and GPU) whose requirements evolve faster than others. And there are other computer parts (such as batteries and SSDs) that have to be replaced in time.

 

[carestudio]

Excellent job! iFixit!

 

[jakey rolling]

If using a particular device is your bread and butter, you have a well tested backup plan. Having a warm standby Studio (or whatever) on hand is far more cost effective than spending time futzing with the internals of some computer. As the old saying goes "if it's under warranty, it's not broken."

Ahh yes. Just spend another $5k+ on a spare to have hang around just in case the one you're using breaks. And hope that your backups are completely perfect since you can't move the SSD from the broken machine to the spare. That sounds a lot like the old Xserve "Enterprise AppleCare" backup plan that Apple were selling that last time Apple tried to pretend that they knew how to serve enterprise customers.

The real cost-effective backup plan is to build your workstations to be properly serviceable, and then offer service plans that include on-site repair with technicians and replacement parts available within hours of a system going down. That is the kind of "backup plan" I have for my bread-and-butter machine. I've had to use it once in the last 15 years, and I was down for a grand total of one lunch hour when a motherboard crapped out.

 

[montuori]

Ahh yes. Just spend another $5k+ on a spare to have hang around just in case the one you're using breaks. And hope that your backups are completely perfect since you can't move the SSD from the broken machine to the spare.

"Hope?" Sorry, "hope" plays no role in a professional environment. Either you *know* -- because you test backups regularly as part of your process -- or it doesn't really matter (and no shade, it doesn't for most folks).

Not for nothing, amortized capital expenditure for $10k is pretty trivial. If you're not thinking in those terms, maybe a $5k machine isn't for you. (Again, no shade: most people will do really, really well with a Mac Mini or iMac!)

 

[Reggaenald]

"iFixit Tears Down Mac Studio and Studio Display"

Yes the YouTube video shows the Mac Studio teardown, but this was only a sneak preview of the Studio Display guys, so article title is incorrect.

Not technically. They did tear it down, just didn’t show it all.

 

[Reggaenald]

I can see people buying the max 8tb and swapping it out for there 512 and returning the expensive one this is gonna give bad people ideas they shouldn’t have spoke about it

How did Apple not know about this possibility with their iMacs where the RAM could be upgraded.
Oh wait, they did. No worries. You don’t become a $>3b company be making such silly mistakes.

 

[Reggaenald]

Pros don't work on their own machines. They use them, and replace when the time comes. Any issues are handled under warranty.

iFixit needs to adjust their definitions.

So, the Mac Pro is pointless then? If only Apple new that they were correct about the trash can all along.

 

[Reggaenald]

When iFixit starts sounding like a YouTube Star ouch! Didn’t they used to do teardowns without talking? Revert please revert!

Either you move with the market or the market moves without you. It’s important to stay relevant to stay relevant.

 

[CarlJ]

LOL so funny. that would be like trying to run alder Lake full speed in a laptop. Can anyone say water-cooled laptop?

Hey, if they can make a G5 PowerBook, why can’t they make a M1 Ultra MBP ?!?

 

[CarlJ]

Why does Apple go so far out of it's way to gimp their devices? What is the reason for deliberately making storage upgrades not possible eventhough they've put in the slots?

What kind of a**hole at Apple gave that the greenlight?

You’re assigning intent to their actions that I don’t think you can prove.

 

[haruhiko]

Pros don't work on their own machines. They use them, and replace when the time comes. Any issues are handled under warranty.

iFixit needs to adjust their definitions.

Pros do this and pros don't do this, and must pass certification from a certain MacRumors user in order to be qualified to be called a Pro.

 

[Danfango]

The Mac Pro 2019 has a upgrade process via DFU and the T2 . There is nothing revolutionary new here. In fact, apparently same issue that two '1' NAND modules don't work ( only work in '1' slot) as the Mac Pro .





There isn't really "trivial". The non-iBoot Mac specific boot firmware is on the drive. If toss access to that key then the whole Mac won't boot anymore. Doing a DFU via Configurator on a 2nd Mac is going to be tough if only have one Mac handy. Furthermore have ot back up data and do a complete data restore after "blow away the key". It isn't a moon landing project, but it will take substantive amounts of time.

Yep noted. Did some research. Boot process is completely different on the M1 machines to the Intel ones. The SSD has half of iSC and 1TR on it which is tied to the hardware. BUT it looks like you can still boot off an external disk in insecure mode and possibly use that to recover the system. I suspect the Linux dudes will come up with something in this space.

I have three M1 macs here so not a problem but I can imagine people having to haul any bricked ones back to Apple or a third party to get this sorted.

Im not bothered though about this these days. I’m paying for a brick to do a job.

 

[Danfango]

So, the Mac Pro is pointless then? If only Apple new that they were correct about the trash can all along.

They were correct apart from the design of it.

 

[Danfango]

Ahh yes. Just spend another $5k+ on a spare to have hang around just in case the one you're using breaks. And hope that your backups are completely perfect since you can't move the SSD from the broken machine to the spare. That sounds a lot like the old Xserve "Enterprise AppleCare" backup plan that Apple were selling that last time Apple tried to pretend that they knew how to serve enterprise customers.

The real cost-effective backup plan is to build your workstations to be properly serviceable, and then offer service plans that include on-site repair with technicians and replacement parts available within hours of a system going down. That is the kind of "backup plan" I have for my bread-and-butter machine. I've had to use it once in the last 15 years, and I was down for a grand total of one lunch hour when a motherboard crapped out.

LOL yeah good luck with that. We can’t even get HPE to get us parts at the moment including disks. Think we had a lead time of about 3 months on fairly common 6TB replacement enterprise PCIe SSDs.

We have to buy complete spare stacked $80,000 Servers for hot standby and overpurchase workstations by 20% to maintain our SLAs.

On the workstation side of things, off the shelf apple configs are looking pretty tasty at the moment assuming we can get our workflow on them (which is looking possible thanks to UTM)

 

[NightFox]

I can see people buying the max 8tb and swapping it out for there 512 and returning the expensive one this is gonna give bad people ideas they shouldn’t have spoke about it

I'd imagine computer retailers will have been wise to this scam for at least the last 30 years.

 

[George Dawes]

Even the interior is better designed than the front !

 

[radieschen]

That's how I read it. They did just eliminate the concept that a single drive is "married" to a single Studio. Moving "the same size from one to another" and it working means there is not a hardware/software key. So there's at least potential that someone finds a software "block" that would make a Studio ignore what is in the other slot.

If solely for storage repairability, I'm not grasping why Apple would need to build in 2 slots. I would assume maybe there were plans for BTO all the way to 16TB in 2 drives but they backed that down to 8TB MAX (for now).

Since the M1 Ultra is two M1 Max merged together, there are also two SSD controllers, one for each M1 Max. Maybe they can use one M1 Max with a defect SSD controller and one with a working controller for a M1 Ultra, this way. For Mac Studios with low SSD storage, one port could just not work if this is the case and than it doesn't matter how the M1 Ultra is oriented with two ports. Furthermore they could keep the option to build Mac Studios with higher capacity, using an M1 Ultra with two working controllers. Even a Raid 0, to get higher speeds would be possible.

 

[Belifant]

Ahh yes. Just spend another $5k+ on a spare to have hang around just in case the one you're using breaks. And hope that your backups are completely perfect since you can't move the SSD from the broken machine to the spare. That sounds a lot like the old Xserve "Enterprise AppleCare" backup plan that Apple were selling that last time Apple tried to pretend that they knew how to serve enterprise customers.

The real cost-effective backup plan is to build your workstations to be properly serviceable, and then offer service plans that include on-site repair with technicians and replacement parts available within hours of a system going down. That is the kind of "backup plan" I have for my bread-and-butter machine. I've had to use it once in the last 15 years, and I was down for a grand total of one lunch hour when a motherboard crapped out.

Let‘s put it in a bit more specific terms. In a professional setting, where the buyer of the computer isn‘t also the user of it, computers will not be upgraded, but instead just replaced after generally a pre defined amount or time. Exceptions always apply.