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Mac mini Late 2018 Teardown

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Re: Mac mini Late 2018 Teardown

#31

Post by Someone1234 »

jws wrote: post #23
sanketskasar wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The two I installed this week are using 70GB and 90GB all set up for development with my files. I think there are plenty of people who needn’t spend on an extra 128GB. Especially since the USB ports are plenty fast for bulk, non speed critical storage should you decide to archive something locally.

128 GB doesn't work because it doesn't scale well with age.

You can run MacOS or Windows on 256 GB almost indefinitely, even as they grow it would be five or more years before it becomes a headache, to keep 128 GB happy you have to babysit/rebuild semi-regularly.

I'm yet to see an OS which doesn't bloat as it ages, even on mobile devices. 30 GB free won't be 30 GB the next major OS update, including rollback files, logs, and so on. OS bloat is also one of the few things you cannot offload to external storage.

And I'm someone that ran off of a 128 GB SSD for almost two years.

PS - Plus increased resale value will likely pay for itself.

Re: Mac mini Late 2018 Teardown

#32

Post by PhasmaFelis »

TremendousJudge wrote: post #12
xienze wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Has that changed in the current generation? On the XBox 360, you could physically stick any standard IDE drive in the drive bay, but the console wouldn't mount it unless it had a hidden file verifying that it was purchased from Microsoft, which charged well over market value.

Re: Mac mini Late 2018 Teardown

#33

Post by Someone1234 »

SloopJon wrote: post #3

More 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.

Agreed. Hopefully it is only something you'd do once per device. I'd hate to work somewhere where they spend all day performing all those steps.

Re: Mac mini Late 2018 Teardown

#34

Post by rayiner »

OskarS wrote: post #2

A 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.

The trade-off isn't height--an M.2 slot takes up a relatively large amount of floor space on the motherboard. There's nowhere to put it: https://d3nevzfk7ii3be.cloudfront.net/igi/ZLFbiRsOdiemeWLA.h....

Re: Mac mini Late 2018 Teardown

#35

Post by sneak »

sanketskasar wrote: post #19
OskarS wrote: post #2

A 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…

That’s not what necessity means. I think most users of this device will be fine with 128gb. I think you underestimate cloud usage for this machine’s target market.

Re: Mac mini Late 2018 Teardown

#36

Post by sneak »

isolli wrote: post #20
sanketskasar wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It provides an option to either display a long recovery key at first encryption (which you can store somewhere) or to archive it online with Apple in iCloud so that you have a second key available in the event that you lose your password.

But also: backups. make backups.

Re: Mac mini Late 2018 Teardown

#37

Post by sneak »

riobard wrote: post #29

I really hope someone could figure it out if Mac mini with the i3-8100B CPU can work with ECC memory. According to Intel the CPU is ECC-capable, but I’m not sure about the mobo. If it works with ECC, it would be a truly mini Mac Pro. The higher-end configs with i5 and i7 CPU are not ECC-capable, only the entry-level i3 CPU is ECC-capable.

What is your use case where ECC ram is that important?

Re: Mac mini Late 2018 Teardown

#38

Post by juergbi »

sanketskasar wrote: post #19
OskarS wrote: post #2

A 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…

M.2 wouldn't be a bottleneck. It supports up to PCIe 3.0 x4 which has a maximum bandwidth of 4 GBps in each direction.

Re: Mac mini Late 2018 Teardown

#39

Post by riobard »

sneak wrote: post #37
riobard wrote: post #29

I really hope someone could figure it out if Mac mini with the i3-8100B CPU can work with ECC memory. According to Intel the CPU is ECC-capable, but I’m not sure about the mobo. If it works with ECC, it would be a truly mini Mac Pro. The higher-end configs with i5 and i7 CPU are not ECC-capable, only the entry-level i3 CPU is ECC-capable.

What is your use case where ECC ram is that important?

I plan to ditch NAS and just connect external storage directly to the mini, and it needs to run 24/7. ECC should give me better reliability, no?

Re: Mac mini Late 2018 Teardown

#40

Post by giobox »

mcphage wrote: post #30
SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this not the idea behind the Mac App Store?

Not really, no. Most of Apple's money comes from hardware sales.

“Services”, as apple like to call the heading they report App Store revenue under, is largely the fastest growing thing at Apple. While historically it’s true Apple has made its money on high margin hardware, the future growth seems much, much more reliant on services. I wouldn’t be so quick to discount the increasing importance of service revenue such as the app stores to Apple.
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