Change harddrive on the new macbook pro M1

In fact the USB 3.1 SATA dock that I am looking at is cheaper than the USB 3.0 dock.

The MBP M1 specs only specify support down to USB 3.1:

“Two Thunderbolt / USB 4 ports with support for:

• Charging
• DisplayPort
• Thunderbolt 3 (up to 40Gb/s)
• USB 4 (up to 40Gb/s)
• USB 3.1 Gen 2 (up to 10Gb/s)
• Headphone” https://support.apple.com/kb/SP824?locale=en_AU

However, I assume USB 3.0 support is grandfathered into the standards?

The USB 3.1 dock promised an actual speed of 430Mbps, but the USB 3.0 dock promised the theoretical speed of 5Gbps so I was comparing apples and oranges and betting the oranges had fewer overheads!

That’s actually really a silly assertion, SAS, SATA, and M.2 are all perfectly reliable interfaces for storage, and on the subject of solid state actually far outdo the reliability of the flash itself in 99% of cases. These stunts are exclusively for the purpose of making money, it doesn’t matter what Apples R&D department has to say because they’re the same R&D department keeping lightning alive despite the objective superiority of C. Additionally, the choke point of laptops is typically in soldered components anyways, GPUs will fail laptops far before RAM or the sockets they are slotted in and much less a simple m.2 slot, this stunt is only to drive up sales of higher storage laptops and deincentivize personal repair.

If you manage to unseat an unsoldered RAM or SSD from your laptop by mishandling, dropping or whatever else abuse you do to your machine, then you'll have far more than reliability issue with RAM and storage. I don't buy the argument that those are soldered for "reliability" reason one bit!

This may very well be the ostensibly stated reason, e.g., soldered components may well in fact be more reliable, but the fact of the matter is that, with both the transition to Intel, and the unserviceability of their kit, Apple effectively empowered the Hackintosh community for a number of years. What I mean to say is, that was the appeal of Hackintosh: upgradeability, user selection of customer parts, etc. It empowered the enduser, whereas Apple continued to shrink and solder. They might say that this makes their kit more reliable, but it also makes it less repairable as well, and forces those who want more memory or larger storage capacities to pay the "Apple tax." Just for comparison's sake, the following is available from Dell, with a touchscreen and 32GB RAM, and with a 2TB NVMe SSD, https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/new-xps-13-touch-laptop/spd/xps-13-9310-laptop/xn9310cto240h

For only $2049.

It has an 11th generation Core i7, etc. I know it's apples and oranges (ha!) when comparing PC & Mac, or Intel and M1.

To get similarly specced MacBook Pro, but with only 16GB RAM (cause that's all it supports at present) with 2TB storage, it's gonna cost $2299 out of the gate. No touch screen, limited ports, no upgrades possible.

https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro/13-inch-space-gray-apple-m1-chip-with-8-core-cpu-and-8-core-gpu-512gb?part=MYD92LL/A

Again, this may well all be about reliability, but don't sit there telling me it doesn't benefit Apple's bottom line! "Hey, Apple! My 256GB SSD is full! What can I do?" "Well, you could buy this external hard drive, upgrade your storage on iCloud (make sure you save your desktop/documents to the cloud!), and/or trade in your laptop you just bought on a new model... Will that be cash, or charge?"

On a Mac with a T2 chip, only drives containing VERIFIED versions of MacOS many be chosen as alternate boot drives for this specific Mac.

You need to have made the appropriate changes in Startup Security Utility, and allowed your Mac to verify the MacOS installed on that proposed Boot Drive (and allowed your Mac to connect to the Internet to complete the verification AND possibly updated that MacOS) before you can boot from that alternate Boot Drive:

About Startup Security Utility - Apple Support

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Since the late 2012 MacBook Pro, no unreliable RAM sockets have been used. Instead, the RAM components have been soldered directly to the board.

This choice was made for maximum reliability. Sockets, and the components in them, cause poorer reliability than direct soldering.

Once Apple was able to get drive reliability high enough, the chips that make up the SSD drive were eventually soldered down as well, also for reliability reasons.

Apple is not conspiring against you. In fact, they want you to have the most reliable Mac possible, so they have soldered down the components in all their portable computer lines.

It is in your best interest to have it so. But you MUST have a reliable backup scheme.

I deliberately said having components that are removable, and the SOCKETS they sit in, are a cause of unreliability.

This branch of Component Engineering is well studied, and there are graduate Electrical Engineering programs in Component Engineering. The US Military has published huge volumes of information and a method for computing mean-Time-Between- Failures. None of what I said is unsupported speculation.

But Conspiracy Theories are certainly a lot more fun.

Funny you mention the US military, I guess you weren’t made aware that we still use cables and slotted components, but why would you understand something you assert when you can’t even cite it. MTBF is irrelevant here, when the SSD fails (not if, smarty) in a soldered situation it is irreplaceable and the laptop is a brick, this is the irrefutable truth of this argument that you seem incapable of recognizing. The only thing increasing the unreliability of slotted components is incompetent technicians, but if you’re incompetent enough to miss the key on a DIMM or M.2 then you’re not fit to have opened a laptop in the first place and you probably didn’t even pass that bar to begin with either, so it’s effectively a non issue. Soldering memory and storage renders cheaper, slimmer laptops and that’s all, sorry you just aren’t in the loop.

The MacBook Pro is a lightweight, portable computer that runs on batteries. Being portable, it can easily be subjected to multi-G forces daily, just by being moved about in a completely ordinary way. This is extremely stressful to electro-mechanical equipment.

Apple has Not soldered down the RAM and drives in most of its desktop computer line.

It is also about Apple saving money as it is cheaper than including extra sockets and cables which are less reliable and hinder the ever shrinking size of the laptop. Plus with soldered components Apple can more easily achieve higher transfer rates without having to worry about connectors that can affect performance that may also require extra circuitry to make them function at the same speeds. It is the same reason your iPhone and iPad don't have removable SSDs or memory. Apple is going for super slim and lightweight laptops which require this integration in order to achieve such slim and lightweight laptops. If you don't like it, then you are definitely purchasing the wrong computer.

Years ago computers such as the Commodore 64 were made where most of the chips on the motherboard were installed into sockets so that the chips could be easily removed for troubleshooting & repair. But very quickly the manufacturers moved to soldering many of the chips to the motherboard in order to save money (it removed the cost of the socket and the extra cost to insert the chip into the socket). Then in later production runs they ended up soldering all the chips to the motherboard (even the large 40 pin ones). It isn't always about a company trying to hinder you, although I'm sure Apple enjoys that as an added benefit since they clearly don't believe in the user's Right to Repair since Apple blocks independent repair shops from purchasing the required electronic components to actually repair a Logic Board.

I agree these laptops will become paper weights once their SSDs fail since it will not be cost effective to have the laptop repaired assuming the laptop is even still supported. Unfortunately society has become a disposable society where nothing is made to be repaired to keep it functioning like in the early 20th century and earlier. Some of it does have to do with complexity of newer items, but even in less complex items repairability is becoming a thing of the past.

FYI, you can remove the drive from your old laptop and use it externally on the new M1 laptop by using a USB to SATA Adapter, drive dock, or enclosure.

Just an FYI, it's not only Apple. I have a Dell XPS 13 laptop and the memory is soldered to the motherboard in those as well, not upgradeable. I've heard that it's the case on some other ultralights as well. By the way, you or some of the other posters seem to be confused about something. In the M1 laptops, the memory is actually part of the processor. It's not separate. That's why it can't be changed. And connecting an external SSD via Thunderbolt connector gives you a pretty fast storage solution if your internal storage isn't large enough.

As a tinkerer and unafraid person to wreck whatever I am "repairing/upgrading" I do not like Apples no repairability

stance. However one should consider that only a small percentage of users (Would be interesting to know how many) is capable of doing work inside their computers or even wants to.

Add to that the many calls Apple will no longer get when somebody who tinkered now has issues.

What is missing is a path to at least be able to have a failing SSD exchanged at a reasonable price.

Had a 1TB fail in my 2015 MBP and thankfully it was possible to put a new one in.

I tend not to upgrade to the latest MBP models, when what Apple offers annoys me. For example the constant removal of all ports requiring dongles is a no go for me. Apple assuming I am willing to have EVERYTHING in the cloud is false.

Looks like the next gen of MBPs with M2 will get some of the ports back. At that point I'll be interested to upgrade and most likely bite the bullet to max out the MBP. Counting on somebody figuring out a hack to get at least the SSD replaced after warranty is expired.

Let's also appreciate how long the majority of Apple computers last and how long they support their system software.

Anybody who does not like their products should just buy what works for them.

So, what’s the next best option?

I have a late 2011 MBP, with expanded RAM and a 1TB 2..5” 6G SSD, so very similar situation to the original poster.

I never saw any prospect of reusing my RAM which I presume would be incompatible with the M1, either slotted or soldered.

I presume my best reuse option is with the hard disk using a a 2.5” ssd enclosure with USB 3.0 port and a USB-C cable.

My laptop use is fairly light. I have an iMac for most work, but pre-Covid I might use the MBP occasionally for work trips. I also had a 90GB Bootcamp partition for a small number of Windows only apps I use. I use Dropsync to mirror the files. I only use the Cloud for backup from my iMac, currently IDrive. My largely a agricultural clients can be in remote locations, with poor or nil bandwidth, so a pure Cloud solution doesn’t suit. I can use Dropsync for USB drive backup from the MBP on the road.

So, comments & thoughts?

The limiting factor for a SATA drive will be its maximum SATA transfer rate, which will be limited by the SATA interface. Since the drive is already speed-limited, USB 3 or 3.1 will NOT be a bottleneck. Do not pay extra for USB 3.1

Ruadh2 wrote:

I presume my best reuse option is with the hard disk using a a 2.5” ssd enclosure with USB 3.0 port and a USB-C cable.

If that is the original Apple hard drive, then you may first want to check that the drive is not worn out or failing. You can do this by running DriveDx and posting the report here using the "Additional Text" icon which looks like a piece of paper. Usually if DriveDx reports any "Warnings" or "Failing" it means the drive is worn out or actually failing respectively.

It is best to get a good quality USB enclosure which also supports UASP since UASP provides much better performance for the drive and other USB devices (especially when mixing USB devices).

“Two Thunderbolt / USB 4 ports

The MBP M1 specs only specify support down to USB 3.1:

However, I assume USB 3.0 support is grandfathered into the standards?

Yes, the laptop will support USB standards from USB4 down to USB1.

the USB 3.0 dock promised the theoretical speed of 5Gbps

This is what USB 3.0 is capable of with the right combination of parts such as using an NVMe SSD, but any SATA based SSD drives will be limited to 500MB/s max while an old hard drive may be lucky to get 80MB/s. It is sometimes hard to separate marketing speak which make products look better & more attractive than what you will actually see.