The new Mac mini with the M4 chip has a regular SSD that you can replace yourself.
On many other Macs, including previous Mac minis, the drive is soldered onto the board, making it physically impossible to remove.
The bad news is that the SSD in a Mac mini with M4 is easy to replace. First, Apple uses a connector rather than the common M2.
The second reason, more serious: the SSD does not have its own controller, it is built into the processor. This means that even if you find an SSD with the same connector and install it instead of the standard one, it will not work.
A similar system is used in Mac Studio, and there are already external SSDs that can bypass Apple’s built-in security. True, there are very few of them; the first delivery of SSDs is expected only in December 2024.
So it will be some time before enthusiasts can bypass the M4’s security and integrate an SSD into the new Mac mini.
But even if you don’t take into account the possibility of upgrading the SSD, this is still good news, because a removable hard drive quickly repairs your computer.[Reddit]
Source: Iphones RU
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