The M4 Mac mini has modular storage. Sounds like good news, right? Well, not quite.
M4 Mac mini has Modular Storage that Offers Zero Benefit to the Consumer, but Suits Apple More in Repairs
The thing is, when Apple does things, it does them differently. For example, the company has been soldering storage and RAM modules directly onto the motherboard. This means that in case of failure, you can’t change or upgrade the part yourself.
In fact, Apple can’t change the part either. It has to change the entire motherboard.
However, Apple started going modular with some of its devices, especially the Mac Studio. But, as great as it may sound, you still can’t remove and upgrade the parts yourself, because it still remains a complicated task, as shown on the iFixit forums.
Why is it complicated? Because in true Apple fashion, it’s a custom part. This means you can’t walk into any hardware store, buy the SSD of your choice, and upgrade your M4 Mac mini with it.
While this is not good news for consumers, this change is going to benefit Apple a lot. In case there’s an SSD failure, Apple doesn’t have to replace the entire motherboard and can simply replace the SSD instead.
In all of this complicated stuff, there’s good news, too.
The good news is, the base model M4 Mac mini uses two 128GB SSDs for faster performance instead of just one 256GB drive. This is a huge change, and one which the average consumer won’t notice at all.
But, if you are someone who cares about read and write speeds, you will immediately notice the difference, especially when copying and moving files around.
Previously, you had to bump up the storage to 512GB or more in order to get faster read and write speeds on the Mac mini.
