Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mac mini Late 2018 Teardown

ifixit.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 197 posts

Re: Mac mini Late 2018 Teardown

#61

Post by oblio »

jmull wrote: post #52
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…

> What's disappointing is the base storage. But that just depends on use-case. There are plenty of scenarios where you just need the built-in storage to handle the OS, apps and miscellaneous storage while your large scale storage is external somewhere. Why make people get (and pay for) more storage than they have use for?

Because storage is cheap for everyone except Apple, that knows they can get 60%+ markup for everything they sell.

Re: Mac mini Late 2018 Teardown

#62

Post by sjburt »

vetinari wrote: post #51
Someone1234 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, l…

On SSDs, you also want as much as free space as possible, to avoid wearing out due to write amplification the few free blocks that are constantly rewritten.

Modern SSDs (last 5 years or so) will wear level by relocating infrequently written blocks.

Re: Mac mini Late 2018 Teardown

#64

Post by kiddico »

Someone1234 wrote: post #33
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.

I've worked in one of those places. Once you work on the same machine a few times you get really good at it.

If you've got the time to go slow its kind of therapeutic.

Re: Mac mini Late 2018 Teardown

#65

Post by illumin8 »

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.

90GB out of 120GB when I've just barely installed the apps and files I need mean I'll run out of space in less than 3 months.

It's a shame that 256GB isn't the minimum in these new, expensive Mac minis.

Re: Mac mini Late 2018 Teardown

#66

Post by sercand »

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 can use the icloud account to encrypt the disk, not a separate password to encrypt.

Re: Mac mini Late 2018 Teardown

#68

Post by cvwright »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #32
TremendousJudge wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

IIRC they were also using a clever (sneaky) application of copyright law to enforce this. They used a few special sectors on the disk to store an image to which they hold the copyright. The Xbox checks to make sure the image is there in the right spot before it will use the drive. So you can't pass off another drive as valid without violating their copyright.

Re: Mac mini Late 2018 Teardown

#69

Post by cptskippy »

rayiner wrote: post #34
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... .

There's plenty of room for an M.2 module, especially on the backside of the board which is how they're traditionally mounted on desktop ITX boards.

https://i.imgur.com/dW0ynV7.png

They can also be mounted at an angle just like those SO-DIMM slots.

The M.2 standard even supports 12mm, 16mm, and 30mm width modules in addition to the 22mm that seems to have become the norm. Apple could still be a dick by using a 12mm or 16mm card while still supporting the standard.

Re: Mac mini Late 2018 Teardown

#70

Post by C1sc0cat »

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 have always though a Mac Midi slightly wider by an inch and 3x-$x the Hight and able to take a short graphics card update with more options would have been a good basic mac for a lot of apple shops.

Or even a mac using the Shuttle SFF size

Post reply on HN