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Apple Silicon Macs can't boot from external drive if internal drive failed

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Re: Apple Silicon Macs can't boot from external drive if internal drive failed

#251

General grumpiness about this particular design decision aside, it appears that since the T2 Macs, the main SSD was being used to store core system firmware. On T2 I think it's BridgeOS that sends the EFI image to the Intel side to boot it, and it does the firmware verification and loading. This setup has a benefit; namely, it is now impossible to brick the system with a bad BIOS/EFI flash, and you'll never need to u…

Lol, bad flash recovery has been solved a long time ago without retarded side effects like not being able to boot off an external drive.

Re: Apple Silicon Macs can't boot from external drive if internal drive failed

#252

General grumpiness about this particular design decision aside, it appears that since the T2 Macs, the main SSD was being used to store core system firmware. On T2 I think it's BridgeOS that sends the EFI image to the Intel side to boot it, and it does the firmware verification and loading. This setup has a benefit; namely, it is now impossible to brick the system with a bad BIOS/EFI flash, and you'll never need to u…

>> and should it fail, I don't consider the inability to externally boot to be a huge problem

…the flying fuck?!

I stopped reading here. I was all for your comment until I heard this nonsense.

…in what world is this acceptable? What computer have you personally purchased between 1980-2010 that could not have had this core essential part simply replaced if it did not function correctly?

I’m not sorry for complaining; either. I’ve been used to the $2k-4k machines I invest in to have replaceable parts that I can fix in the city or town (that may not have an Apple Store) I am in without any excess effort or extended time.

This has been the standard for decades. It is not unreasonable to ask for an offering from this company whom I’ve almost exclusively purchased hardware from for more than 15 years.

It’s a fucking huge deal if I can’t simply boot from an external drive if my main one doesn’t work - mainly because the internal one can’t be replaced!

I mean; I get defending Apple - I’m in their camp - but this is just absolute nonsense. Yes. That’s a huge fucking deal. A deal-breaker; even.

Re: Apple Silicon Macs can't boot from external drive if internal drive failed

#253

General grumpiness about this particular design decision aside, it appears that since the T2 Macs, the main SSD was being used to store core system firmware. On T2 I think it's BridgeOS that sends the EFI image to the Intel side to boot it, and it does the firmware verification and loading. This setup has a benefit; namely, it is now impossible to brick the system with a bad BIOS/EFI flash, and you'll never need to u…

》The primary argument against soldering the SSD, or really any other part, down like this tends to be that "Oh, now you can't just save money by upgrading it yourself|replacing it when it breaks Are you trolling? The primary argument is data recovery. Anything on laptop can die: charging port, motherboard... With soldered ssd your data are gone! You need to resolder SSD into exact same machine type, it may take 5 wee…

I don't see how data recovery is an issue. You should be backing up off-site and locally anyway. Why would you optimize for the specific case of most of the laptop dying but not the SSD? It's more likely your laptop will get stolen or lost or dunked in water or burned in a fire. The soldering will make no difference in that case. Use backups.

Re: Apple Silicon Macs can't boot from external drive if internal drive failed

#255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These days I don’t understand why people don’t sync their important files to cloud. Dropbox has a free layer that’s perfectly fit for a theses.

Maybe because not everyone likes to share their most important files with a third party? Or because of providers scanning files or stuff like: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv...

That’s fair but if someone is concerned about it they should invest into backups. It’s unconscionable to entrust days of someone’s work to a single device.

Re: Apple Silicon Macs can't boot from external drive if internal drive failed

#256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like all their laptops use Intel processors? Do they let you control and disable Intel's management engine on that CPU? If not then I don't see how one really "owns" the hardware.

Dell allows you to disable it (but it’s not really repairable) system76 and librem I think has it removed (but they’re not worth it for the specs).

s76 blogged that they're working towards manu of their own laptop machines soon rather than the clevo stock, so that value might change soon.

Then again, their tower is exorbitant, so...maybe not.

Re: Apple Silicon Macs can't boot from external drive if internal drive failed

#257

The only lens I care about these days is the impending climate disaster. Technology like this, that embodies a lot of carbon and has a built-in expiration date, is getting more and more upsetting to me. I don't need a faster computer, I need air that will still be breathable in 20 years. My next computer will likely be whatever 5-10 year old laptop I can snatch up on it's way to the landfill. It definitely won't be a…

[deleted]

Re: Apple Silicon Macs can't boot from external drive if internal drive failed

#258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> soldered-to-the-motherboard, everything-utterly-encrypted approach is that it's almost impossible to do data recovery Well, that's kind of the point. > You just have to be damn sure that you back it up correctly. Exactly. And that's as easy as plugging in an external hard drive occasionally, or storing critical files in the cloud.

Back it up to some cloud vendor that also holds the encryption keys... Brilliant bit of security there... /s

If you don’t want that, back it up to a cloud service that doesn’t hold the encryption keys. Eg, use tarsnap. It’s your computer and your data.

Re: Apple Silicon Macs can't boot from external drive if internal drive failed

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone laugh a bit at these types of comments? Using these "stupid" and "unjustifiable" approaches, apple has delivered highly reliable / fast machines to lots of users. They come with applecare if you want, which gets you walk in fix/replace at their stores. Note, they've already don't this on iphones - millions shipped. They are going for as much reliability / speed out of this for the 90%+ of users who are no…

You are arguing without any arguments. 1) I agree that some integration is intimately tied to how well the machines performs. I also referenced this in my comment. What I don't agree to is the SSD being soldered on. It uses the same PCIe lanes it would use if it was swappable ! As for the "stupid" approach, it really doesn't make much sense to tie the capability of the machine FUNCTIONING to a storage that you cannot…

You are not in the business of shipping a million+ devices.

* Any connector is a potential failure point. Generally with a connector you double the connection points (ie, SSD -> Connector -> now soldered to board). So if you are soldering anyways, and can solder to board directly, then you save yourself both a part and a bunch of connection points. This is good news for everything (signal loss, noise / RFI / durability etc). When you warranty and offer applecare on expensive devices, you want these warrenty claims to be low.

* Apple's mode has been to integrate / tighten things up - that is their design philosophy. They are going to integrate as many chips into one as they can (ie, you won't be even able to unsolder a T2 chip because there won't be one). There stuff, again, is meant to be used as an integrated whole, there is no mix / match here.

* They are going to solder memory as well down - you won't be able to replace that either. Then they are going to try and integrate memory into same package as CPU / GPU. I realize this makes folks mad, but it's what they do and it's been very successful for them. I think some of their LPDDR stuff only comes in a solder on format (and M1 is going towards even more integration - I actually like mix and match on my desktops so don't use macs so not following so closely but I know they were thinking of literally not even soldering but integrating fully).

* I saw first hand a number of claims BTW where replacement batteries had been put into macbooks and iphones as part of resales and people then went and complained to apple or about apple online when those batteries had problems. I think even when replaceable, they've added warnings in these cases. But it goes to show the quality in the mix and match department is hit and miss.

Frankly, it's probably 95%+ of their millions / billions of devices that won't get an upgrade. They've done same with airpods, no removable batteries. A ton of companies, again, or COPYING these designs.

Re: Apple Silicon Macs can't boot from external drive if internal drive failed

#260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I finished the life of a SSD in a single year of regular use; it was great to find it should not happen, but it did.

What drive? What was the end of life behavior you observed? Catastrophic failure, or SMART data showing wearout?

Not the parent but I had this happen to me. It was a top of the line Samsung SSD at the time. Catastrophic failure. Was working fine then one day I rebooted and it never came back. I usually plan for failure of each drive every 2-3 years and buy them on Black Friday. But if that took out my entire 3.5k-4k m1 max laptop I'd be rather disappointed. It's $200 to replace a SSD.
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