Reprinted from TidBITS by permission; reuse governed by Creative Commons
license BY-NC-ND 3.0. TidBITS has offered years of thoughtful commentary
on Apple and Internet topics. For free email subscriptions and access to the
entire TidBITS archive, visit http://www.tidbits.com/


              Clarifying the Lack of Mac Studio SSD Upgradability

   Josh Centers

   As soon as early purchasers of the Mac Studio received their units,
   some took the opportunity to tear Apple's newest Mac apart to see what
   was inside. Many were stunned to find that the Mac Studio's SSDs were
   physically replaceable, only to be disappointed when their Mac Studios
   wouldn't boot after swapping SSDs. Some accused Apple of locking the
   drives in software or even bricking the computers.

   As [1]Andrew Cunningham of Ars Technica explains, that isn't the case.
   Every SSD has two components: the controller that acts as an interface
   to the machine and the flash storage itself. Apple now builds the SSD
   controller into its own chips: the entire M1 family and the T2 security
   chip used in Intel-based Macs. The SSDs inside the Mac Studio are
   merely raw storage without a controller. In fact, iFixit has since
   gotten a [2]Mac Studio drive swap to work, which means the storage in
   the Mac Studio is repairable. If matching Apple's SSD hardware design
   is all that's necessary we expect that vendors like OWC will eventually
   offer compatible Mac Studio SSDs. However, there could also be
   Apple-proprietary chips involved that may prevent that.

     We got two base model Mac Studio units to accept each other's
     drives, so storage swaps are possible! Both drives in one unit isn't
     working just yet'Śwish us luck. [3]pic.twitter.com/i2wcbppluf

     -- iFixit (@iFixit) [4]March 22, 2022

   [5]Read original article

References

   1. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/03/explaining-the-mac-studios-removable-ssds-and-why-you-cant-just-swap-them-out/
   2. https://twitter.com/iFixit/status/1506360427755712512
   3. https://t.co/i2wcbppluf
   4. https://twitter.com/iFixit/status/1506360427755712512?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
   5. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/03/explaining-the-mac-studios-removable-ssds-and-why-you-cant-just-swap-them-out/

.