Early teardowns reveal that the M4 Mac Mini uses slotted modular SSDs, rather than soldered-on memory. This modular system means that storage upgrades are technically feasible, but Apple’s proprietary SSD design makes upgrades a non-starter for the average customer.
The Mac Mini began using soldered-on storage in 2018, likely as a means of cutting costs and encouraging upsells. Engineers who are skilled at microsoldering can upgrade soldered-on storage modules, though very few people actually perform such upgrades outside of China. So, modular storage has been at the top of customers’ wishlists for some time.
Teardowns from Twitter user @ohgkg and iFixit community member KianWee Lim show that Apple is finally using modular storage in the beloved Mac Mini—awesome, but these are the same proprietary SSDs that we saw in the Mac Pro and Mac Studio—they’re upgradable, but only if you source the drive from another Mac or buy a ridiculously overpriced storage module from the Apple Store (the 2TB module costs $1,000, meaning that it’s 10x more expensive than a typical 2TB M.2 SSD).
Apple’s proprietary storage modules use non-standard connectors and feature integrated NAND controllers. Building a replacement drive or an adapter with off-the-shelf parts is a fool’s errand, at least for now. On the bright side, company called Polysoft Services is preparing to launch a line of replacement SSDs for the Mac Studio, Mac Pro, and M4 Mac Mini. But these replacement drives aren’t cheap. External drives are still the only realistic option for the average Mac owner.
As for why Apple chose to give its modular drives a proprietary design—man, I don’t know, it probably makes in-house repairs cheaper or some crap like that. User-upgradability is clearly an afterthought, and Apple’s stupidly overpriced replacement modules seem to be geared toward enterprise customers who are willing to blow $1,000 on 2TB of storage.
Thankfully, this is a desktop computer. Non-upgradable internal storage is far less annoying on a Mac Mini than it is on a MacBook Air or MacBook Pro. You can buy a M.2 SSD, shove it in an enclosure, and plug it into on of the Mac Mini’s Thunderbolt ports for a fast, reasonably-priced storage upgrade. I should also point out that the 256GB M4 Mac Mini offers the same internal read/write speeds as its higher-capacity counterparts, as it no longer uses the single-module design that hampered previous 256GB Macs.
Source: @ohgkg, iFixit via MacRumors
