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I want to love Apple, but they’re making it hard

AlexTheGreatish

Does anyone have a source where they tried swapping in storage from a higher SKU and it didn't work? Everything I've seen has attempted swapping in multiple small modules with no success as displayed in the video, but I haven't seen (and can't find, due to the immense coverage of this) anyone try swapping in a larger single module. Not saying the video was inaccurate when they said people had tried it, I'd just like to see a primary source.

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1 minute ago, Andrewrobert said:

Does anyone have a source where they tried swapping in storage from a higher SKU and it didn't work? Everything I've seen has attempted swapping in multiple small modules with no success as displayed in the video, but I haven't seen (and can't find, due to the immense coverage of this) anyone try swapping in a larger single module. Not saying the video was inaccurate when they said people had tried it, I'd just like to see a primary source.

No. I’m not aware of anybody buying two 4TB versions to try combining them. To be fair, that’s a significant investment for a 10 minute YouTube video so I’m not expecting anyone to try it any time soon.

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Just now, Paul Thexton said:

No. I’m not aware of anybody buying two 4TB versions to try combining them. To be fair, that’s a significant investment for a 10 minute YouTube video so I’m not expecting anyone to try it any time soon.

That's not what I mean, obviously that would be ridiculous (though it'd be cool too). I mean buying a 512GB and a 1TB model (for example) and trying to swap the modules into the other computer as the only connected "drive."

 

They say in the video that people have tried it and it hasn't worked, but I'd like to see it.

CPU: Intel i5 4690k  | Motherboard: Gigabyte Z97-HD3 | RAM: 1x8GB 1866MHz G.Skill Ripjaws X | GPU: EVGA RTX 3060 XC | PSU: Corsair CX500M | Case: NZXT Source 220 | SSD: PNY CS2111 240GB + PNY CS900 1TB | Monitors: 2x Acer Predator XB273K
Yes, I need to buy a new computer and yes, I upgraded the GPU last year when I came to the front of EVGA's queue and didn't know when I'd next be able to get one.

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47 minutes ago, Swingles said:

Apple does what they want with items such as the Studio and Mac Pro, the amount of customers that buy these products is not great enough to cause any serious backlash. So apple knows the people buying the Studio will cave to Tim Cook's ridiculous ways, since it really is a product like no other.

Same with the studio display with the ridiculous non-replaceable power cord, not enough people buy it, or enough people defend apple for it.

1 hour ago, DANK_AS_gay said:

If you haven't tried one, how can you know if it is so awful? Do your family members ever upgrade their storage or RAM (not excusing Apple's behaviour, but they do have a point in that regard)? The MacBook air M1 is actually a good deal, especially for normal users. For $1000 you won't find the same feature set. Since most users don't need a ton of power, and only care about how the screen looks, how the device feels, and how easy it is to use, it offers a great deal. Sure a $1000 gaming laptop will beat the thing (in GPU performance), but if you don't game, you don't need that much chonk.

I've replaced storage, ram, and batteries in laptops for people before, and they like having a faster system or a working battery again without having to purchase a new laptop.

What defines a "normal user"? Some might need a laptop with a larger screen, or a more powerful GPU, or things that might not run on a ARM mac.

For $1000 I'd rather have a Framework laptop, also not everything on the market is a gaming laptop.

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3 minutes ago, Andrewrobert said:

They say in the video that people have tried it and it hasn't worked, but I'd like to see it.

Ah I see. I misunderstood. The only ones I’m aware of are Luke Miani and Max Tech, but I can’t remember if they focused purely on swapping out or if they were attempting to combine storage.

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So a few things.

why do you need to do a DFU reset when swapping NAND and cant to a internet recovery? the reason for this is simple the entire system firmware is stored on the ssd when you span the NAND that cant be read, so you cant even get to a boot loader since there is 0 firemware on the device. 

As to upgrading to higher capacity modules this is posisble the people who attempted this before did it before the DFU tool had been updated they found it impossible to switch them models as well since they were unable to successfully DFU

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Another point - I know the apple support page Linus & Alex looked at said you need to use another Mac, but I'm pretty sure I've read that you can also use Apple Configurator 2 on an iPad or iPhone (obviously for the latter you need a lightning->usb-c cable which will be dog slow) to do the DFU flash.

 

I've never tried it though so take that with an LTT ruck sack's worth of salt.

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It's funny that no one is actually suprised that apple builds their products in an anti customer way. Without the benefit of having their own OS and theirfore a large fanbase which has no other (legal) options, they would have gotten much more backlash.

Many apple customers buy a Mac, use it for X years and then just upgrade to the newest model. These customers don't care about upgrading their RAM, SSDs, etc...

But I think overall companies should move towards more standard and replaceable parts to reduce the production of e-waste.

One thing that often gets overlooked is a products second live. Even if the person who buys a new MAC specs it to their desired spec and doesn't upgrade it, they still sell it used after X years if it is still in working condition and then the second owner is stuck with not enough memory and/or storage even if he has some DDR4 RAM and M.2 SSDs lying around.

 

For me upgradability is still a big selling factor. Not every part in a PC must be upgardeable no matter what. It's okay when companies build proprietary mainboards to fit small formfactors. But that doesn't prevent them to build/use socketed CPUs or at least use standard off the shelve RAM/SSDs. Oh and using proprietary motherboards when they just could have used an ATX one should be illegal....Dell....

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5 minutes ago, Paul Thexton said:

The only ones I’m aware of are Luke Miani and Max Tech, but I can’t remember if they focused purely on swapping out or if they were attempting to combine storage.

Luke Main did this before the DFU tool had been updated with firmware for the Mac Studio and found it impossible to set the firmware for any of the spwaps even the same size ones so I would not take this findings.  

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47 minutes ago, Paul Thexton said:

No. I’m not aware of anybody buying two 4TB versions to try combining them. To be fair, that’s a significant investment for a 10 minute YouTube video so I’m not expecting anyone to try it any time soon.

Even if they did buy 2 4TB Mac studios the chances are they would not work since apple source NAND dies from multiple vendors and its very unlikely apple have build a controller that can controller dies from multiple vendors at the same time. (if they have then its a first for the industry).

So if you buy to macStudios each 4TB your going to need to have the luck that both of the 4TB NAND modules are from the same vendor...  


End of last year apple said they will be opening a parts repair program I expect these modules will come in that program some point later this year in paired sets (like the macPro modules, you need to think of them like RAM mixing is not good or supported).
 

I do not expect other vendors to be able to make these since they are not just dumb NAND dies as it might look, so that the dies can communicate with the SoC these modules contain a on module apple arm core than runs its own little os (there are more seperate co-prororosrs each running its own cut down Darwin on apples M1 platforms than there are regular cpu cores). The only way we end up seeing third party modules is if apple license this out (they have in the past done things like this with OWC and other vendors for other Macs). 

 

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11 minutes ago, hishnash said:

Even if they did buy 2 4TB Mac studios the chances are they would not work since apple source NAND dies from multiple vendors and its very unlikely apple have build a controller that can controller dies from multiple vendors at the same time. (if they have then its a first for the industry).

Yep, that's what I'm expecting to be the case as well (can't mix & match the modules if they're not from the same vendor)

 

12 minutes ago, hishnash said:

so that the dies can communicate with the SoC these modules contain a on module apple arm core than runs its own little os

Have you got a source for that? Reading through the info from Hector Martin (don't have a direct link, it was tweeted a few weeks ago now) it sounds like there are firmware blobs to handle modules from various vendors. If the modules had a controller chip on them (however 'mini' it is), wouldn't that be kind of redundant ?

 

13 minutes ago, hishnash said:

End of last year apple said they will be opening a parts repair program I expect these modules will come in that program

If I were an Apple Studio owner I would be hoping for that to be the case, but I certainly wouldn't be expecting it at this point.

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8 minutes ago, Martycrane said:

is no one going to bring up the fact that recovery mode can be accessed by pushing and holding the power button. you don't need to access dfu mode to format the drive and reinstall macOS. i did it on my M1 mac mini not that long ago to revert from a beta version of macOS. this is the first time i can say that one of the videos is deliberately misleading.  

 

here's the page from apple.

 

you and linus are better than this.

As far as I'm aware the machine won't get that far, so DFU mode is the only way to go. 

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Just now, BondiBlue said:

As far as I'm aware the machine won't get that far, so DFU mode is the only way to go. 

you can always get into recovery mode, even with a completely blank ssd. like i said, i did it like 2 weeks ago. recovery mode is stored on it's own memory directly on the board. 

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1 minute ago, Martycrane said:

you can always get into recovery mode, even with a completely blank ssd. like i said, i did it like 2 weeks ago. recovery mode is stored on it's own memory directly on the board. 

You did it on an M1 mini that still has its stock SSD. That's a different situation than the Mac Studio. Below is a timestamped YouTube video showing where Luke Miani couldn't get the Mac Studio to do anything other than flash SOS. This is after he swapped the module from one Studio to the other. 

 

 

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28 minutes ago, Paul Thexton said:

it sounds like there are firmware blobs to handle modules from various vendors. If the modules had a controller chip on them (however 'mini' it is), wouldn't that be kind of redundant ?

No as these chips on the modules need firmarwe that is what is sent as part of the DFU, one key feature of DFU is it is a full firmware reset. He mentioned that each one of these has a local arm core. 

 

 

2 minutes ago, Martycrane said:

you can always get into recovery mode, even with a completely blank ssd. like i said, i did it like 2 weeks ago. recovery mode is stored on it's own memory directly on the board. 

Depends on the hardware, modern Macs (T1 and M1*) store all writable firmware on the SSD this has some big advantages as it means you cant brick your Mac even if a firmware upgrade failes it can be re-flashed using DFU mode (very few other vendors offer a USB refreshing that works if the upgrade failed). 

 

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5 minutes ago, BondiBlue said:

You did it on an M1 mini that still has its stock SSD. That's a different situation than the Mac Studio. Below is a timestamped YouTube video showing where Luke Miani couldn't get the Mac Studio to do anything other than flash SOS. This is after he swapped the module from one Studio to the other. 

 

 

seems i am in the wrong here, i apologize and will delete the original post.

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1 minute ago, Martycrane said:

seems i am in the wrong here, i apologize and will delete the original post.

You're fine, the Mac Studio is still only a few weeks old, so people are still figuring out how it's put together and what can and cannot be done with it. 

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1 hour ago, Blademaster91 said:

I've replaced storage, ram, and batteries in laptops for people before, and they like having a faster system or a working battery again without having to purchase a new laptop.

That doesn't mean everyone wants it. Most people don't even know what RAM is. I've had my friends call their entire computer a "cpu". Those people don't care, and if something goes wrong, will buy a new one anyways. and while I'm not saying that Apple is correct (I would love to be able to put 16GB of RAM in my M1 Air instead of 8, and it annoys me that I cannot), I'm also saying that they have a point. People are still buying these things. 

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Voting with your wallet is one thing, but why doesn't the tech community confront Apple and demand an answer for their bullshit designs and decisions??? There's enough tech savvy people out there now to throw the hard questions at Apple and not be swayed by any illegitimate excuse or non-technical reasoning. I would even go so far as to say there's enough tech savvy consumers now following the tech community - clearly Apple ignores the fact that consumers have become far more informed now than they have been ever before.

 

You absolutely HAVE TO CALL THEM OUT when companies do things like this!!! Otherwise it will just get swept under a rug, forgotten and consumers will accept it as the normal. Except that companies getting away with anti-consumer-friendly bullshit like what Apple does IS FAR FROM what can be called "normal".

 

Imagine if the tires wore out on your car and the manufacturer said we can't change them, you have to buy a new car. Or the plumbing in your bathroom failed and the home builder said we cannot repair it, you need to buy a new home. That's the kind of STUPID MENTALITY Tim Cook has, and it is dangerous for our future.

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1 minute ago, BondiBlue said:

You're fine, the Mac Studio is still only a few weeks old, so people are still figuring out how it's put together and what can and cannot be done with it. 

i don't want to spread misinfo though. this is exceedingly stupid, even by apple standards. i like apple stuff, i use it more often than not, but this is indefensible.

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2 hours ago, Jaesop said:

The world isn't split up into Macs and gaming laptops.

Yes and? How does that apply? I was talking specifically about the people who say "You can get a much better gaming computer for $1000", or only care about price to performance, not about every laptop ever. 

That, and Just that Mario changed his post, and unhearted my post, which makes it way more confusing, and does make it look like I brought up gaming laptops out of the blue. His post is where I got "gamurr bois" from

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6 minutes ago, Martycrane said:

i don't want to spread misinfo though. this is exceedingly stupid, even by apple standards. i like apple stuff, i use it more often than not, but this is indefensible.

yer would be much nicer if apple just published a tec note listing the possible permutations of NAND modules that are supported. People will continue to try all sorts of things that will never work (an would not work on anything other controler) I expect at some point someone will get 2 4TB macStudios and try to combine them and get very upset when it does not work even through they have failed to notice they are combining NAND modules from different vendors. 

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1 hour ago, Blademaster91 said:

What defines a "normal user"? Some might need a laptop with a larger screen, or a more powerful GPU, or things that might not run on a ARM mac.

Normal user: someone who uses their computer for day-to-day tasks that involve at most a video call and Excel sheets. Most people do not need, and do not want (the negative aspects of) a GPU in their laptop. If you need a buff computer for work, why get a laptop anyways? A desktop would be better price to performance, and have way more upgradeability. If you are getting a gaming laptop, why are you even thinking about MacOS? 

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Just now, DANK_AS_gay said:

Normal user: someone who uses their computer for day-to-day tasks that involve at most a video call and Excel sheets.

I think you underestimate what a lot of normal users do. 

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