SSD card upgrade for MAC Studio

<<. All SSD's have a finite write capacity, meaning they can only be written to a certain number of times. >>

you are correct, BUT:

the SCALE of the number of writes supported is ENORMOUS!

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one user wrote that they had written a distressing (to them) 6 TB of writes to their SSD in only a year. They were quite alarmed.

A quick calculation showed they would run out of re-write capability...

... in about 60 YEARS !

If you want to keep that exact model Mac for more than 60 years, clearly that one is not for you.

350 TBW is the typical low-end, and drives as high as 1200 TBW are available.

Bloggers who ran experiments to write drives to their death to see what happened did not see ANY weird things happen until nearly TWICE the TBW had been exceeded. At that point, a few blocks MAY start to get corrupted, but the entire device does NOT "fall off a cliff"

Punchline:

For most use cases, TBW is high enough you can simply put it out of your mind, you won't see those effects in ordinary use.

https://techreport.com/review/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-theyre-all-dead/

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Apple does not use Planned obsolescence.

Computers continue to change at a rally fast pace. REAL obsolescence causes User desires to expand far faster than old hardware can keep up with. Here is an example:

SSL to TLS:

In 2015, researchers discovered that Secure Socket Layer (SSL) Internet encryption was not nearly as secure as was thought, and needed to be replaced. Internet encryption quickly moved to Transport Layer Security (TLS) which was rapidly deployed across the Internet. Over time, sites tightened requirements for what was acceptable for encryption.

Apple issued Safari version 9 in 10.11 El Capitan version of MacOS, which included TLS encryption. It was later provided by Security Update into the two previous versions of MacOS. 10.10 Yosemite and 10.9 Mavericks, PROVIDED you applied all available software updates.

MacOS versions older than those can not make a lot of secure [httpS:] connections on the Internet, because by todays standards, your proffered SSL encryption is considered inadequate.

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Readers post here weekly that their computers WORK FINE, but they cannot be upgraded to MacOS versions new enough to run Safari 9, and can not make internet connections. That is NOT planned obsolescence -- those computers can still do everything they could do the day they were taken out of the box. But the User needs have changed.

The slot on the other side will not work with a commercial SSD device. if you had bought a different model, it might have another Array plugged in that slot.

The controller for all Macs (2018 and later, with T2 chip) or Apple-silicon Macs, that feature built-in SSD devices have an Apple custom controller and a bare data Array. The array is linked to the controller through firmware and can not be replaced by the end users -- It contains a portion of the Secure Enclave and part of the recovery software. Removing it bricks your Mac.

These Macs were always sold as "not internally upgradeable once manufactured'. Apple has never represented otherwise.

I remember reading a third-party teardown of a M1 Max Mac Studio … and all the stuff they had to do to get as far as those slots.

I believe the Mac Studio's SSD's arrangement is one you might describe as "repairable" but not "upgradable" – if worst came to worst, Apple or an authorized repair shop could presumably replace dead flash modules with new ones. But given how hard it is to get to the slots, and that they don't use standard self-contained SSDs, there are not likely to be many people trying to put upgrades in them.

There are upgrade kits for the Apple Silicon Mac Pro. $1000 for 2 TB; $1600 for 4 TB; $2800 for 8 TB. You need a second Mac running Apple Configurator 2, and a USB-C cable, to set up the first Mac so that you can reinstall all of your software.

Yeah, it look like after being a dedicated Apple User, since 1980 (still have my Apple IIe), Apple has finally gotten rid of me.

FACT 1: All SSD's have a finite write capacity, meaning they can only be written to a certain number of times. This fact result in FACT 2: when an SSD reaches end of life, it dies. When this happens, it cannot be repaired, it must be replaced.

So, FACT 3: Apple is incorporating intentional END OF LIFE in its products. I will not buy any computer with non-serviceable storage, especially on a product with a 40% margin.

I just walked out of an Apple Store, for this reason. Now, if Apple is willing to drop its 40% margin.....and drop its prices 30%, maybe I'll reconsider.

My point is that such an issue should not even enter your mind. Computer storage is a normal wear item, much like the tires (tyres) of your choice of transportation. Wear is inevitable, replacement is expected, and FIXING IT should be a designed in feature.

As for your report, try this counterpoint. https://datarecovery.com/rd/ssd-lifespans-how-long-can-you-trust-your-solid-state-drive/

Many, many years, ago, a guy named Tucker, came out with a car with and engine with monobloc construction. The monobloc setup was thought to be a good way to avoid head gasket failures but brought along a whole new world of technical issues when it came to working on the engine. The same holds with the non-serviceable SSD. It does give a short term gain of *show*, while providing large negatives in the *service*.

It matters not, if the SSD lasts 5 years or 10 years. If your only practical option is to replace the entire computer or at a minimum, a much larger (expensive) circuitboard, it is no option, at all. As well as placing a potentially unaffordable financial burden on the User, it means that an entire computer of hazardous waste must now be inefficiently recycled (and many parts of the computer are NOT currently recyclable) in some polluted 3rd world country, rather a single, small, mostly recyclable SSD.

The non-servicable SSD is good for Apple's short-term bottom line, but bad for both the User and the Environment and only passes on more problems for the "next generation" to live with.

https://www.epa.gov/smm-electronics/basic-information-about-electronics-stewardship

Good Stewardship means not creating a problem when you don't really have to....Apple doesn't have to be creating this problem, it's just cheaper and more profitable to create it.

thanks for that article, but...

...the source, DataRecovery.com, is NOT a disinterested party to this discussion. They have stuff they want to sell you, and suggesting SSD drives will fail on your tomorrow is the message that is in their best interests.

Leemac wrote:

anyone remember SCSI?

Yes, I do remember SCSI. It was superior to the interfaces that most PCs were using then, even though Apple had a habit of mostly using the slower forms of SCSI.

I also remember when Apple introduced the first iMac. They dropped the SCSI port, the ADB (non-hot-swappable keyboard/mouse port), and serial ports (for printers and modems) in favor of USB 1.0.

USB 1.0 ran at less than 1/3rd of the speed of SCSI-1, so this change wasn't so great for Mac users at the time; but it lit a fire under peripheral vendors. They previously had been content to equip printers with parallel and old-style serial ports (for use with DOS/Windows PCs and Macs, respectively). This forced them to implement USB, if they wanted to sell to iMac owners, and once they put USB in for Mac owners, it was in there for PC owners as well.

Now "regular" USB on Macs runs at "up to 5 Gbps" or "up to 10 Gbps" – a far cry from the "up to 0.012 Gbps" of USB 1. With Thunderbolt 3/4 and USB4 transfer modes running even faster.

Leemac wrote:

anyone remember SCSI?

P.S. – I believe SCSI may still live on, after a fashion, in data center equipment.

Also in those $10 tool-free USB 3.0 notebook drive enclosures that are a dime a dozen on Amazon. Many of them implement UASP. UASP stands for USB-Attached SCSI Protocol and allows for better performance than you'd get with a traditional USB transfer.

Do I really need to point out that Apple has new computers they want to sell you, and that making SSD drives, (which will all eventually fail - some soon, others later) in their hardware, unserviceable is in their best interest to sell those new computers?

A majority of people don't have an extra few thousand just sitting around looking for a place to go. They've already used it on their phone, which is also a planned obsolescence product.

Planned obsolescence only serves the seller. The planned obsolete home is right around the corner...if not already located on a lot.

Leemac wrote:

A majority of people don't have an extra few thousand just sitting around looking for a place to go. They've already used it on their phone, which is also a planned obsolescence product.

I'm not sure that smartphones are very good example of planned obsolescence products.

A smartphone is a very miniaturized product. There's an incredible amount of functionality crammed into a very small space, in a chassis that is likely to get bounced around on a regular basis, maybe dropped on occasion.

I suppose you could argue about whether a phone should be made larger so that it could have user-replaceable battery (like my "dumb" phones) did, or a slot for a micro(SD/SDHC/SDXC) card. But there isn't room inside for, say, DIMM sockets to allow for user-expandable RAM.

People want to connect to the fastest cellular and Wi-Fi networks. As cellular and Wi-Fi standards evolve, there's a demand for equipment that has the radio hardware and encryption hardware to support new radio and security standards. And then carriers start dropping support for old cellular frequencies (e.g., 2G) or you find that people have set up their systems to require newer forms of security that older devices do not or cannot implement.

Planned obsolescence is there, when repair/update is not available and/or the ability to repair/update is locked out.

And it is the locked out part that is the problem. Just ask any farmer about John Deere.

I didn't intend smartphones as a prime example of planned obsolescence, rather as an item on which significant disposable income has already been spent.

Not all people have need, or even access to fast cellular and Wi-Fi networks. Sure, the big cities have it, but much of the World is not in a big city and even satellite access is not "universal". I have one location "in the hills", that in order to even have phone service, I've had to set up a $1500 registered cell phone signal boosting station.

But a computer is NOT a phone. Its users' needs, uses, and longevity requirements are are quite different and will be for some time, to come.

Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:

Apple does not use Planned obsolescence.

Really? Apple walks away from older models with its regular OS upgrades which lead to hardware requirements, which cannot be installed in older machines. That's not planned? Keep right on believing that. Yes, all will eventually be left behind, but Apple intentionally leaves them.

While I'm ok with not being able to update to the latest and greatest bells, whistles, and features of Apple's latest and greatest, and I'm ok with the "Net" eventually running tech that I don't have (my old Mac IIfx and OS 7 just won't cut it), I'm very unhappy with them dropping a Security patches for older OSs long before the machines and OS are left in the internet dust.

And it goes beyond Apple just not releasing its own security patches for OSs that they released, and are still in use. Apple stops providing needed information to 3rd party security software providers. ie: Sophos no longer supports older than OS 10.15 Catalina. Not because they don't want to support it. They don't support it because Apple won't give them the information they need to support it.

That, sir, is Planned, and intensional, Obsolescence. As is making an SSD a non-serviceable item. If you outgrow your Mac, with a nonserviceable SSD you either replace the Mac, or get (and carry around) an external device... which will also, eventually become obsolete.......anyone remember SCSI?