Curious as to which 10Gb Ethernet controller is being used, no mention in the teardown. Anyone know?
Aquantia, same as the iMac Pro.
Mac mini Late 2018 Teardown
11–20 of 197 posts
Re: Mac mini Late 2018 Teardown
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ideal solution would be small secure enclave storage for keys then user-upgradable main storage encrypted with those keys.
Of course, but then how could you charge 2-3x for storage upgrades that way? Edit: wow, really struck a nerve there. I take it back, Apple is in no way motivated to massively overcharge for storage upgrades.
Console manufacturers never seem to have any issue with it, and hard drives are user upgradable
Re: Mac mini Late 2018 Teardown
#13More accessible than the previous gen (although oddly iFixit gives it the same score of 6/10), but it's harder than I'd hoped to get to the RAM.
Yes, but it is upgradeable again, so Apple listened a little to us raising a stink about it.
Re: Mac mini Late 2018 Teardown
#14A bit disappointing to see that the storage is not user-upgradable. I guess it matters less on a device like this where you could more easily use external storage, but still. I wish Apple stopped soldering in stuff and just made things a centimeter taller if that was the tradeoff.
Maybe Apple should build SSD storage thingies that are exactly the same size as the mini so they can be stacked. They're already stacking them for demos and it would definitely look cool. Especially if you get Thunderbolt cables that exactly match 1-4 mini heights (since it got 4 Thunderbolt ports) + daisy chaining.
Contemporary SSD storage only takes up as much space as a pack of gum, just like sticks of RAM. Even SSDs with terabytes of capacity! Any desktop computer, even a small one, has all the physical space needed to have upgradeable storage.
Re: Mac mini Late 2018 Teardown
#15A bit disappointing to see that the storage is not user-upgradable. I guess it matters less on a device like this where you could more easily use external storage, but still. I wish Apple stopped soldering in stuff and just made things a centimeter taller if that was the tradeoff.
Maybe Apple should build SSD storage thingies that are exactly the same size as the mini so they can be stacked. They're already stacking them for demos and it would definitely look cool. Especially if you get Thunderbolt cables that exactly match 1-4 mini heights (since it got 4 Thunderbolt ports) + daisy chaining.
Something that allows maybe 4 or more M.2 SSDs and 2 x TB3 controllers...
Re: Mac mini Late 2018 Teardown
#16A bit disappointing to see that the storage is not user-upgradable. I guess it matters less on a device like this where you could more easily use external storage, but still. I wish Apple stopped soldering in stuff and just made things a centimeter taller if that was the tradeoff.
My understanding is that Apple pairs the individual hard drive in any given unit with the "Secure Enclave" that they use for TouchID within the same unit. So they are paired and one cannot be replaced without also replacing the other. Not excusing it, just explaining.
There is no Touch ID on the Mac Mini.
Re: Mac mini Late 2018 Teardown
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
My understanding is that Apple pairs the individual hard drive in any given unit with the "Secure Enclave" that they use for TouchID within the same unit. So they are paired and one cannot be replaced without also replacing the other. Not excusing it, just explaining.
There is no Touch ID on the Mac Mini.
It still has a T2 chip.
Re: Mac mini Late 2018 Teardown
#18A bit disappointing to see that the storage is not user-upgradable. I guess it matters less on a device like this where you could more easily use external storage, but still. I wish Apple stopped soldering in stuff and just made things a centimeter taller if that was the tradeoff.
> I guess it matters less on a device like this where you could more easily use external storage, but still. I wish Apple stopped soldering in stuff and just made things a centimeter taller if that was the tradeoff.
Here it's a bit more than just that: T2 is the secure boot system, but also the SSD controller (and a few other I/O things).
They could have put an m.2 slot though.
Re: Mac mini Late 2018 Teardown
#19A bit disappointing to see that the storage is not user-upgradable. I guess it matters less on a device like this where you could more easily use external storage, but still. I wish Apple stopped soldering in stuff and just made things a centimeter taller if that was the tradeoff.
I think it's more because of the PCIe interface, and access control and encryption through the T2 chip.
The PCIe interfaces SSDs that Apple's been using allow really fast speeds of upto 3Gbps, which is almost double those offered by other interfaces like M2 or even more faster than SATA.
What's disappointing is the base storage. 128GB in 2019 is so ridiculous. I would't otherwise mind a soldered SSD when I can just use the TB3 ports to connect external drive with virtually no performance loss. But 250GB internal storage is a necessity especially when the OS itself takes up almost 20GB out of the paltry 120GB.
Re: Mac mini Late 2018 Teardown
#20A bit disappointing to see that the storage is not user-upgradable. I guess it matters less on a device like this where you could more easily use external storage, but still. I wish Apple stopped soldering in stuff and just made things a centimeter taller if that was the tradeoff.
I think it's more because of the PCIe interface, and access control and encryption through the T2 chip. The PCIe interfaces SSDs that Apple's been using allow really fast speeds of upto 3Gbps, which is almost double those offered by other interfaces like M2 or even more faster than SATA. What's disappointing is the base storage. 128GB in 2019 is so ridiculous. I would't otherwise mind a soldered SSD when I can just u…
Is encryption optional? In general I'm more worried of forgetting my password (and thus losing all my data) than of unauthorized access to my home desktop.