Here from the WAN Show; I have two older Macbooks so this doesnt even effect me, but *YAYY* for innovation and letting Apple know that their practices SUCK! I have part II cued.
You just spit in apple’s face and proved that their reasoning for soldering storage on their boards is merely for financial gain. We need more people like you. Thank you.
They definitely never denied it being for greed, the fact they're willing to charge so much more for so little difference in cost to them is evidence enough that it is only intended for product tiering.
its also for performance gain. The data transfer/read/write in soldered method is FASTER than the one demonstrated here. I prefer to have it soldered for FASTER performance.
@@jensonbuttonfan In that case sequential read/write is way faster on a PCIe Gen 5 SSD. But random IOs are almost same across similar types of cells (SLC the best one, TLC, QLC). The point is if you have smaller capacity, It'll be swapped way more often and cause degradation then you can just throw your laptop and blame on you for not using cloud storage. SSDs (good quality ones) are fast enough that they don't cause any bottlenecks in the system.
A lot more stops working on an Apple Silicon Mac without the NAND than just battery charging. Half of the firmware is stored there so it really cannot boot without it.
@@anivicuno9473 Personally I could get over it, *if that storage was slotted.* There's no good reason to solder it down. You aren't sacrificing any speed nor power efficiency (like it'd be the case for RAM). A slot would fit there easily, give that in this video we see two whole PCBs _and_ the NAND modules stuffed in there without an issue! The only real disadvantage is _one extra thing to plug in_ during manufacturing. That's so insignificant, it's basically a rounding error in the complexity of laptop production. My guess they just went with the exact same thing they are using on the iPhone. All other laptops also rely on some flash to boot. But it's not the main storage so it is not wearing out during everyday use (at least if the firmware is properly designed). And if it dies, soldering a new one is so much easier because SPI flash isn't this behemoth that NVMe is. Though to be fair, you can revive these Macs from literally empty memory, while on most laptops if you lose the contents of that flash, your serial numbers, MAC addresses, calibration data and firmware is now gone for good. Good luck patching together a Frankenstein firmware out of memory dumps from other devices.
@@anivicuno9473 Personally I could get over it, *if that storage was slotted.* There's no good reason to solder it down. You aren't sacrificing any speed nor power efficiency (like it'd be the case for RAM). A slot would fit there easily, given that in this video we see two whole PCBs _and_ the NAND modules stuffed in there without an issue! [1/4]
@@anivicuno9473 The only real disadvantage is _one extra thing to plug in_ during manufacturing. That's so insignificant, it's basically a rounding error in the complexity of laptop production. My guess they just went with the exact same thing they are using on the iPhone. [2/4]
I don't think it's the engineers themselves who want to do these things. I'm sure it's a directive from management, probably Tim Cook, and Steve Jobs previously to lock things down as much as possible, and they hire engineers who are willing to do this. I bet some, or most of the Apple engineers would secretly be laughing and saying "it's about damn time! Way to go community!"
Modern Apple engineers. In the past a Mac was the most upgradable device you could get because everything was easily accessible. Then Jobs died and things got crazy
@sterkriger2572 that's laughable. Apple has ALWAYS, even in the 80s been anti-right to repair, but things were much simpler and easier to reverse engineer, even for a hobbyist. Apple authorized repair shop had to sawp out complete motherboards even if a single capacitor or big standard off the shelf TTL chip needed to be replaced. Granted, 3rd parties could make aftermarket software/accessories/peripherals/CPU upgrade boards/RAM upgrade boards, etc. without Apple's approval, all of which is much harder today. This was because of Jobs, had it been up to the Woz, my understanding is that things would have been different. After Tim Cook took over, things got worse, to the point that this is where we are today.
I sent my macbook A1706 motherboard with a failed SSD to iBoff! They soldered the M.2 NVME attachment and I now have 1TB on it! Amazing and quick service! I hope they get the 50k! Love from Mauritius 🇲🇺!
At a guess: they cloned the footprint of the NAND flash chips they are replacing, and stuck an m.2 connector to a PCB they solder to those pads. It can’t be a ‘standard’ SSD because iirc Apple handled the flash controller on the SOC itself, and the storage PCB also looks pretty empty to me. I’d love to see them do a stability test in this setup, because I’d be interested to see how signal integrity is impacted by this
If you can not deduct from all that video how it is made, then you have zero need to know it. This is literally a child's play - very simple, yet clever design. And a big slap in the face of Apple, for not allowing removable storage. I expect the next macbook to have a glued in charger cable, because why not :D
@@cameramakerthe difficulty in overcoming apple's limitations is always apple themselves. Physically and electrically there's not much of a problem, it's just that trying means having to overcome traps and pitfalls left behind deliberately by the crooks at apple.
How about calling it NVMND. Disemvoweled version of "nevermind." Like, "I think im gonna go buy the 2TB MacBook. Oh wait. Nevermind. I'll just pay less and do this mod instead." And you still get to keep the NVM part of NVME. BTW, super awesome mod! Love the through hole design of the main PCB. Looks like its gonna make installing and aligning so much easier.
@@Uberragen21 right? it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. because if im going out of my way to desolder the nands, i will just upgrade to 2tb to begin with and not solder an m.2 connector just to upgrade my 256 to 512 or something lmao. its still cool tech tho
@@akali6636I think making potential future upgrades or repairs relatively trivial is worth it with something like this. Flash storage tends to get cheaper with time and this could add years to a devices lifetime. It could add another point of failure though; as others have mentioned, the timings are potentially altered with the additional circuitry, which could lead to instability.
This is definitely for repair shops and not end-users but its a fantastic innovation. It's going to breathe years of more life into these M1/M2 series laptops. Great for reducing e-waste.
breathe life into old macbooks? Thats no good that affects our bottom line *Cough Cough* I mean customer satisfaction. instead of giving life to our old macbooks buy new ones it will make us *Cough Cough* We mean you happier ;)
They used to have removable storage on the old MacBooks…working in a repair shop we would constantly see the old MacBook airs coming in with bad ssd’s…we had a solution to fix the problem after we replaced the drive… a thermal pad that touched the drive and the bottom of the aluminum case… that was it… $0.01 to $0.02 worth of thermal pad ( factory/apple cost) would have saved countless hundreds, if not thousands of ssd’s ( and help protect muh environments ) just by using what could have been in the end, the cost of a few MacBook airs per year on thermal pads…
I think these technically may not be allowed by a lot of standards, because they could cause the case to heat up beyond allowed limits for laptops. (To reduce risk of burns) but another great mod (if you never use your MacBook on your lap) is to connect the VRMs and CPU to the casing too, as it essentially is just a massive heatsink. This significantly improved performance on my MacBook Pro 2019 16" when I still had it. Would almost feel like I'd be burning my hand if I were to touch it for longer than a second though
Bad things just to name couple: 1. Too expensive just for storage upgrade when it's close to motherboard price 2. Can't be done by average person at home 3. Requires serious soldering knowledge to perform such a complex task, most people who think they can solder will be unable to do it for sure Good things: 1. Nice solution for those who repair macs and comes to one with dead nand 2. Working solution to upgrade existing mac storage without compromises
who asked :D its just to beef up Apple cus last years they suck like look at IP16 or 15 :D its huge joke XD cus even my 11 Pro Max is still good with latest updates rn on 18.1 Beta cus i have my own apps to update :D
@@WallcroftUK was talking to op, he said it was too expensive for a storage upgrade, but the price wasn't mentioned in the video, the product isn't even out yet, doesn't even have a name. bro got confused with a joke about apple pricing
5:10 seeing the mac studio it is clear that apple does this purely for money it is impossible apple makes the components modular unless laws impose it like usb-c or more recent in the EU also that the battery is removable for example in 2028 (for the environment) all devices must have removable components to help repair and keep the devices longer
Of course they do it for money, they are not a charity 😂 To the point of usb-c, I've started to see that as an unfortunate law full of unintended consequences that does not warranty it's existence.
@@mcslender2965 I wasn't talking about that. Around 2000 there were more that 15 different cables in use, later it decreased to micro USB, USB A and lightning connector. Before the law there were mainly only 2 connectors in use, so the market already moved to 1 connector without government controls. Second, if EU tried doing this 20 years ago we would probably be still stuck with USB A connector forever, stifling innovation. Moreover, there's not one single USB C cable, there are more than 4 standarts currently that all look the same but have different properties. What a mess.
@@CoffeenSpice You could talk about something actually useful instead of whining about government regulation supposedly ruining charging connectors. The EU actually did use to require things to be usb micro b back in the day then they moved to usb c when that was a clear upgrade. Unlike the US, they're not so bogged down by infighting that they can't cooperate for 30 years. I actually wish they went a step further and require companies to clearly label what their cables are capable of right on the cable itself by data transfer rate and wattage (kind of like how Ethernet cables says if they're cat 5 or 6). There isn't actually anything wrong with the cables having different standards because not every device needs the fastest speed or be able to do displayport over usb. Only thing I'm miffed by is usb 2.0 being a thing still.
This is a godsend for us. As SSD wear paranoid guy, this will make me hate the newer macbook less. Having the ssd replaceable will make it last for a very long time with good care.
Right, plus given that the Macbooks come with less RAM, a lot of extra writes come from compensating with swapping to disk, which in turn adds more total bytes written than usual. I don't really have a speed concern on an 8GB macbook air even in the long run, like the unified memory does still keep it snappy, but then my only fear is that as time goes on, the SSD will wear out and die before any other components.
@@derpythecate6842 That is one main reason why I fully avoid latest macs with soldered SSD now, and until this is finally rectified, I will never get one regardless of how good it's performance is.
My intel cherryville 120GB ssd from 2012 is still perfectly healthy. Your laptop will die far longer before your storage could have any issue. This problem is in your head only
I've written a lot on my SSD, every day about 4tb and it was just fine. They will live without issues for many years. PRobably the whole mac will fail before the SSD
@@Coolie-ds4tu Okay, but what about if you change your workflow and decide you need way more storage than 120GB? Buying a new computer isn't the best solution when literally the only problem is storage capacity.
"Storage Slice or NAND Slice", just to leave room for "Memory/RAM Slice" or other IO when those eventually come out. Slicing = installing the daughter board Slicer = someone specialising in slicing Sliced Apple/Mac = an apple product with this upgrade.
Wow, amazing. I hope this became popular and available in every repair shop. As a way to upgrade storage capacity I can't see it competing with an NVME in an external enclosure but as a way to save a dead computer it's amazing!!
This is awesome and excellent idea, well done folks!👍Apple should watch this 24/7 to know what their customers REALLY NEED and ask for! Even gaming consoles which do more less one thing can upgrade storage...
I, am, APPALLED at the fact they don‘t even TURN ON without the ssd. This is REPULSIVE. You, my friend. Just did what needed to be done. And i am so grateful. Thank you. ❤
It's just Apple being disgustingly cheap again - on the older machines, the boot code was stored in an SPI flash so even if the drive stopped working the unit could at least power up. On the newer machines, it's striped across the NAND chips used by the SSD so if any of them fails the boot code can't load. This saves them the cost of the SPI flash (I.E. < $1 at the sort of quantities that Apple is dealing with) since they are now stuffing the boot code into the SSD area that the customer has already paid for.
@@TrimeshSZ it's not the cost of the spi, it's the fact that if the storage fails, you're buying a new computer. an spi chip can be replaced easily even by ppl with minimal skills. the nands however are a different beast.
Nice job! Obvious names for those PCBs would be "Tim" and "Steve" I guess, because back in old days when Steve Jobs was in charge we didn't had to deal with this kind of crap (should be clear, that "Tim" is the PCB which has be soldered onto the logic board).
To those who complain that the process isn't shown - he does not need to. If you could not figure out how he did it just from this video. You are definitely 100% not the right person to know about how its done, as you replicating what he did will almost definitely cause more hardware damage from ignorance. A common layperson won't have the tool nor skills to pull it off, it would just be encouraging stupidity. You need to work with BGA components (which require the necessary solder masks and precise placement which can be assisted by a machine), a hot air rework station and possibly a preheating plate to prevent thermal damage to the PCB. He also definitely drilled the PCB to hold it in place with an M3 screw, which unless you really know what you are doing, are definitely going to accidentally cut traces, or even build electrostatic charge from the polycarb dust flying out. Even if he sold the kit, only skilled repairmen will take up the work since BGA hard to deal with, the interposer/adapter PCB is not something you could just solder with a generic solder kit. But if you want a summary of the parts he basically created 1) Interposer/adapter module - connected to the BGA slots where the old NAND used to sit. Its designed with a M3 mounting screw, but you probably cannot replicate it exact position unless you have the board schematics to know that part of the PCB is safe to drill through and has no traces. 2) A removable PCB with 2 SSD NAND chips - these have to match apple's allowed NAND for it to work - so you have to find documentation on what exact chips work for your exact model
So Apple have PCIe (?) pads sitting right next to the storage modules ? You still need to solder on the carrier board, right ? With a bit or re-organising, they could build in regular (maybe 1 sided) NVMe ... they just don't want to
They don't have PCIe pads next to storage modules, if you look closely there are two green PCBs, the one at the bottom is soldered where the original NAND's were located.
It's an Apple proprietary version of PCI-E used for these SSDs, so this simply reroutes the signals to a common port (M.2) where the original NANDs can be placed onto a PCB with that card edge. All this does is make the original signals and chips modular.
Why would they? With removable storage people would buy base model and then upgrade ssd for like 50$... By soldering storage they can charge 200$ for 512GB and when the SSD fails customers are forced to buy new device. It's almost infinite money glitch and screw the customers they are only as good as full are their wallets. That's why I would never buy anything Apple in my life.
A normal M.2 won’t work, as the storage controller into the Mac’s board, and Apple solders on NAND chips. However, just like the Mac Studio (and this mod), all Apple needs to do is put an expansion port on the board, and offer a NAND module. And you’re right, they definitely can do it, and they definitely choose not to. And I find that very frustrating.
Oh my god you guys are malaysian and are just in the Selangor area! Will definitely keep you guys in mind, but aside from Ram, your work will definitely extend the life of the aging M1s when the SSDs die out.
cant? no, they can, they can do anything, as proven over the decades the reason to not do it is to remove points of failure, people upgrading things and damaging them in the process or applying rma for things nor proplerly connected on the motherboard also to force you to pay as much as possible for te highest storage possible from the start, they will not get money from aram or storage upgrade, so why let it happen? it has also planned obsolescence implications
@@jonny11bonk The memory chips (not the controller) is not embedded into the silicon, contrary to popular belief. Its just sitting extremely close to the apple silicon chip on the SoC, hence this reduces latency by design (of apple unified memory). Another video by iBoff did show why he couldn't pull it off. Its external to the SoC (it sits outside of the lid covering the actual Apple silicon chip), but its so close to the SoC chip that its super difficult to remove only the 2 RAM chips without accidentally overheating the SoC and its other small passives. He also showed that its very easy to accidentally delaminate the PCB board. Those have little chance to have an upgrade adaptor - this is due to the fact that memory capacity on Macs are "hardcoded" into the resistors on certain pins likely going to a memory controller on the chip footprint itself. Upgrade itself is not impossible, but the fact that it is hard to remove the RAM chips in the first place and then safely solder a new set onto the SoC makes the task risky.
Adapter is soldered to the old nand pad. So, you need to remove the old one first and soldered the adapter. I think this process need the profesional hand or else the macbook will ruin.
Ethics? Are you really defending Apple’s ethics? This is the same company that consistently works with factories exploiting workers to meet production demands. Other companies are guilty too, but that doesn’t make Apple any better. Or does their “2030 carbon neutral” propaganda magically erase all their wrongdoings? They got caught with their pants down for slowing down old iPhones without warning consumers. It’s strange how their ethics never came into play when it came to disclosing their actions. For a company claiming “amazing ethics,” their anti-repair tactics speak volumes. They actively prevent their suppliers from selling parts directly to third parties, hindering independent repair shops from sourcing components and offering cheaper repair options compared to Apple. That MKBHD interview with John Ternus was laughably bad. The irony was off the charts. “wE dEsIgN pRoDuCtS tO lAsT lOnG.”
soldered, he must be working on mutiple models for the pcb, so not ready to show all details but i bet is soldered where the nanad chips were soldered, simple and smart solution i must say
Far as names for the devices go, I would call the adapter board the i.2, and the M.2-attached storage module iNAND. So the i.2 module is installed into the NAND storage BGA location, and the iNAND modules are inserts for the i.2.
Amazing work. Just goes to show that there's no reason SSDs shouldn't be on sticks. But I also think you should've clarifued that while you're using a regular m.2 port, it is not compatible with regular SSD's and is just a pinout for Apple's regular NANDs in a carrier board.
How do you overcome that serialization problem of the NAND, that generally you can replace it only with NAND chip from the same MacBook , from the same place in a MacBook, you cannot just take 2 chips from the shell
they have information on this in previous videos (or a single video). They have to reprogram the nand-chips in accordance to their placing etc. They did in fact solve this. Which is just amazing to me!
@@whatarewedoing0 yes it does require soldering to attach the m.2 but no more soldering any ssd's to upgrade anymore after modification is what they meant.
They don’t show whether there’s a performance degrading and latency increase of the 1/2/4/8TB models. 256GB model is the SLOWEST model. M.2 storage should have no problems. I'm not s sure about 2/4/8TB models, which exceeds 5GB/s speeds
I don't know what you did exactly, or how you did it, but this really seems like heroic work. I love Apple products, but man, they make some nefarious design decisions. Since they refuse to explain why there would be any benefits to designing their unified system this way, I consider it a tech's moral *responsibility* to try and hack it and fix it.
You should have tested the performance. However, the M Ultra has a removable SSD, but However, the M Ultra has a removable SSD, but MAGIC, it won't let you put a bigger memory. Thank you Apple
Two questions: 1. Are you doing this also for Intel-cpu versions? How much? 2. Are you selling second-hand macs with this mod already made? I would happily buy one. I have and old 2018 intel-cpu which ssd will die any day now and I would love to have a reparaible (to an extent) mac.
Once the NANDs are restored in DFU mode, can they be swapped between motherboards without losing data or are they effectively tied to the board they were first restored to?
Part 2 to answer all questions here: ruclips.net/video/USB9xQu97k4/видео.htmlsi=6bEIJbObcsY2jVbc
Here from the WAN Show; I have two older Macbooks so this doesnt even effect me, but *YAYY* for innovation and letting Apple know that their practices SUCK!
I have part II cued.
Subscribed just because of this video 👏🏼. Will this modification fit inside the chassis of the new shape Macbook Pro 16 inch?
@@ryanbotha7256 yes it will, but that would be a different project next year.
Nice work. I would call it i.NVME
Thats a rad as heck name my dude xD
Apple no longer makes new devices or systems using the i(Name) nomenclature
@@MammothBehemothso even morefitting 😂
@@MammothBehemoth thars why its BRILLIANT
I don't think if this is good idea, since "NVMe" is owned by NVM Express, Inc.
You just spit in apple’s face and proved that their reasoning for soldering storage on their boards is merely for financial gain.
We need more people like you. Thank you.
They definitely never denied it being for greed, the fact they're willing to charge so much more for so little difference in cost to them is evidence enough that it is only intended for product tiering.
Everyone knew that already
its also for performance gain. The data transfer/read/write in soldered method is FASTER than the one demonstrated here. I prefer to have it soldered for FASTER performance.
@@jensonbuttonfan it’s barely measurable.
@@jensonbuttonfan In that case sequential read/write is way faster on a PCIe Gen 5 SSD. But random IOs are almost same across similar types of cells (SLC the best one, TLC, QLC).
The point is if you have smaller capacity, It'll be swapped way more often and cause degradation then you can just throw your laptop and blame on you for not using cloud storage.
SSDs (good quality ones) are fast enough that they don't cause any bottlenecks in the system.
Stopping the battery from charging because the storage has gone bad is the most Apple thing i’ve ever heard.
A lot more stops working on an Apple Silicon Mac without the NAND than just battery charging. Half of the firmware is stored there so it really cannot boot without it.
@@mskiptr
After hearing that, i'll laught my ass off if anyone tries telling me apple doesn't actively hate their users.
@@anivicuno9473 Personally I could get over it, *if that storage was slotted.* There's no good reason to solder it down. You aren't sacrificing any speed nor power efficiency (like it'd be the case for RAM). A slot would fit there easily, give that in this video we see two whole PCBs _and_ the NAND modules stuffed in there without an issue!
The only real disadvantage is _one extra thing to plug in_ during manufacturing. That's so insignificant, it's basically a rounding error in the complexity of laptop production.
My guess they just went with the exact same thing they are using on the iPhone.
All other laptops also rely on some flash to boot. But it's not the main storage so it is not wearing out during everyday use (at least if the firmware is properly designed). And if it dies, soldering a new one is so much easier because SPI flash isn't this behemoth that NVMe is.
Though to be fair, you can revive these Macs from literally empty memory, while on most laptops if you lose the contents of that flash, your serial numbers, MAC addresses, calibration data and firmware is now gone for good. Good luck patching together a Frankenstein firmware out of memory dumps from other devices.
@@anivicuno9473 Personally I could get over it, *if that storage was slotted.* There's no good reason to solder it down. You aren't sacrificing any speed nor power efficiency (like it'd be the case for RAM). A slot would fit there easily, given that in this video we see two whole PCBs _and_ the NAND modules stuffed in there without an issue!
[1/4]
@@anivicuno9473 The only real disadvantage is _one extra thing to plug in_ during manufacturing. That's so insignificant, it's basically a rounding error in the complexity of laptop production.
My guess they just went with the exact same thing they are using on the iPhone.
[2/4]
Apple engineers: what is this sorcery, removable storage?
AKSCHUALLY usb drives are considered removable storage, wouldnt be surprised if macbook users think that’s ancient technol
I don't think it's the engineers themselves who want to do these things. I'm sure it's a directive from management, probably Tim Cook, and Steve Jobs previously to lock things down as much as possible, and they hire engineers who are willing to do this.
I bet some, or most of the Apple engineers would secretly be laughing and saying "it's about damn time! Way to go community!"
apple would remove a perfectly working feature, shrink device by 0.1% and call it innovation
Modern Apple engineers. In the past a Mac was the most upgradable device you could get because everything was easily accessible. Then Jobs died and things got crazy
@sterkriger2572 that's laughable. Apple has ALWAYS, even in the 80s been anti-right to repair, but things were much simpler and easier to reverse engineer, even for a hobbyist. Apple authorized repair shop had to sawp out complete motherboards even if a single capacitor or big standard off the shelf TTL chip needed to be replaced. Granted, 3rd parties could make aftermarket software/accessories/peripherals/CPU upgrade boards/RAM upgrade boards, etc. without Apple's approval, all of which is much harder today. This was because of Jobs, had it been up to the Woz, my understanding is that things would have been different. After Tim Cook took over, things got worse, to the point that this is where we are today.
I sent my macbook A1706 motherboard with a failed SSD to iBoff! They soldered the M.2 NVME attachment and I now have 1TB on it! Amazing and quick service! I hope they get the 50k!
Love from Mauritius 🇲🇺!
Man not only you get your laptop fixed you get a free upgrade too
How much did the fix/upgrade cost?
What is the address. I want to get mine done also
Does it work with m1 2 and 3?
@@claudiugardelli6302 yes cauz they all contain soldered nand.
nice solution, but we only see the result. It would be nice to see how it's made.
for $950 they can show you how it works( inside your computer) :P
At a guess: they cloned the footprint of the NAND flash chips they are replacing, and stuck an m.2 connector to a PCB they solder to those pads.
It can’t be a ‘standard’ SSD because iirc Apple handled the flash controller on the SOC itself, and the storage PCB also looks pretty empty to me. I’d love to see them do a stability test in this setup, because I’d be interested to see how signal integrity is impacted by this
If you can not deduct from all that video how it is made, then you have zero need to know it. This is literally a child's play - very simple, yet clever design. And a big slap in the face of Apple, for not allowing removable storage. I expect the next macbook to have a glued in charger cable, because why not :D
@@cameramaker with an overengineered grommet to reduce cable strain. 😂
@@cameramakerthe difficulty in overcoming apple's limitations is always apple themselves. Physically and electrically there's not much of a problem, it's just that trying means having to overcome traps and pitfalls left behind deliberately by the crooks at apple.
this needs to go widespread and reach every tech news outlet
99 missed calls from Tim Cook🤣
Tim Crook
69 missed calls
How about calling it NVMND. Disemvoweled version of "nevermind." Like, "I think im gonna go buy the 2TB MacBook. Oh wait. Nevermind. I'll just pay less and do this mod instead." And you still get to keep the NVM part of NVME.
BTW, super awesome mod! Love the through hole design of the main PCB. Looks like its gonna make installing and aligning so much easier.
Are you working in marketing? Thats so clever
@@chromaticvisuelle haha! i don't. but thank you! 😄
Am I the only one that watched the whole video and somehow missed how to actually do it?
Yes. Because right now it is prototype.
because they did not show it lol
Because they had to remove the original NAND chips and solder on the mini board that has the M.2 connector. Sorry, this is NOT a plug & play solution.
@@Uberragen21 right? it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. because if im going out of my way to desolder the nands, i will just upgrade to 2tb to begin with and not solder an m.2 connector just to upgrade my 256 to 512 or something lmao. its still cool tech tho
@@akali6636I think making potential future upgrades or repairs relatively trivial is worth it with something like this. Flash storage tends to get cheaper with time and this could add years to a devices lifetime. It could add another point of failure though; as others have mentioned, the timings are potentially altered with the additional circuitry, which could lead to instability.
This is definitely for repair shops and not end-users but its a fantastic innovation. It's going to breathe years of more life into these M1/M2 series laptops. Great for reducing e-waste.
breathe life into old macbooks? Thats no good that affects our bottom line *Cough Cough* I mean customer satisfaction. instead of giving life to our old macbooks buy new ones it will make us *Cough Cough* We mean you happier ;)
@@Timely-ud4rm Exactly what Tim Cook would say!
😃 😃 😃
I love this part: 5:00 showing the ridiculousness of apple charging $2800 for just 2TB storage
It's 8TB.
🤣🤣🤣
@@TechnoLadz8TB NVMe M.2 gen4 is about $700-$800
They used to have removable storage on the old MacBooks…working in a repair shop we would constantly see the old MacBook airs coming in with bad ssd’s…we had a solution to fix the problem after we replaced the drive… a thermal pad that touched the drive and the bottom of the aluminum case… that was it… $0.01 to $0.02 worth of thermal pad ( factory/apple cost) would have saved countless hundreds, if not thousands of ssd’s ( and help protect muh environments ) just by using what could have been in the end, the cost of a few MacBook airs per year on thermal pads…
I think these technically may not be allowed by a lot of standards, because they could cause the case to heat up beyond allowed limits for laptops. (To reduce risk of burns) but another great mod (if you never use your MacBook on your lap) is to connect the VRMs and CPU to the casing too, as it essentially is just a massive heatsink. This significantly improved performance on my MacBook Pro 2019 16" when I still had it. Would almost feel like I'd be burning my hand if I were to touch it for longer than a second though
This video doesn't (directly) apply to me because I hate Apple, but you're doing amazing work here. Hopefully it makes a difference!
So you guys say no soldering… but clearly the bottom board needs to be soldered, right? How much?
It says no soldering after the modification. so the first mod to install the nvme port does require soldering
Obviously you have to in the beginning. U also have to remove the original ssd
@@sonjonn don't know who "U" is but this isn't solderless then you fucking baboon
@@RevvyP "solderless"
needs soldering
and you're defending this
he won't suck your dick dide.
when u have 0 electronic knowledge....
Bad things just to name couple:
1. Too expensive just for storage upgrade when it's close to motherboard price
2. Can't be done by average person at home
3. Requires serious soldering knowledge to perform such a complex task, most people who think they can solder will be unable to do it for sure
Good things:
1. Nice solution for those who repair macs and comes to one with dead nand
2. Working solution to upgrade existing mac storage without compromises
who asked :D its just to beef up Apple cus last years they suck like look at IP16 or 15 :D its huge joke XD cus even my 11 Pro Max is still good with latest updates rn on 18.1 Beta cus i have my own apps to update :D
Where have you seen the price? Lol
@@bfreitas456 I’m from EU so we say what Apple must do and what can’t 😂 as you see from things they must do or they will be kicked out of EU 😂
@@WallcroftUK was talking to op, he said it was too expensive for a storage upgrade, but the price wasn't mentioned in the video, the product isn't even out yet, doesn't even have a name. bro got confused with a joke about apple pricing
I need 4 shots, minimum, not to see my hand shaking under a microscope while soldering those
Apple: why would we? 1 time payment vs lifetime subscription of icloud? which is more profitable hahahahahhahha
iCloud is probably the best deal Apple has though costing less for more when you get bigger options
@@fhjioghrjiegdgspgkfdsgjirjkslkit's ass if you use anything that's not Apple devices tho
5:10 seeing the mac studio it is clear that apple does this purely for money it is impossible apple makes the components modular unless laws impose it like usb-c or more recent in the EU also that the battery is removable for example in 2028 (for the environment) all devices must have removable components to help repair and keep the devices longer
Of course they do it for money, they are not a charity 😂 To the point of usb-c, I've started to see that as an unfortunate law full of unintended consequences that does not warranty it's existence.
@@CoffeenSpice womp womp
@@CoffeenSpiceoh no. Now I can use my good USB C cable to charge my iphone and my Mac with the same charger. This is sooooo sad LMAO
@@mcslender2965 I wasn't talking about that. Around 2000 there were more that 15 different cables in use, later it decreased to micro USB, USB A and lightning connector. Before the law there were mainly only 2 connectors in use, so the market already moved to 1 connector without government controls. Second, if EU tried doing this 20 years ago we would probably be still stuck with USB A connector forever, stifling innovation. Moreover, there's not one single USB C cable, there are more than 4 standarts currently that all look the same but have different properties. What a mess.
@@CoffeenSpice You could talk about something actually useful instead of whining about government regulation supposedly ruining charging connectors. The EU actually did use to require things to be usb micro b back in the day then they moved to usb c when that was a clear upgrade. Unlike the US, they're not so bogged down by infighting that they can't cooperate for 30 years. I actually wish they went a step further and require companies to clearly label what their cables are capable of right on the cable itself by data transfer rate and wattage (kind of like how Ethernet cables says if they're cat 5 or 6). There isn't actually anything wrong with the cables having different standards because not every device needs the fastest speed or be able to do displayport over usb. Only thing I'm miffed by is usb 2.0 being a thing still.
This is a godsend for us. As SSD wear paranoid guy, this will make me hate the newer macbook less. Having the ssd replaceable will make it last for a very long time with good care.
Right, plus given that the Macbooks come with less RAM, a lot of extra writes come from compensating with swapping to disk, which in turn adds more total bytes written than usual. I don't really have a speed concern on an 8GB macbook air even in the long run, like the unified memory does still keep it snappy, but then my only fear is that as time goes on, the SSD will wear out and die before any other components.
@@derpythecate6842 That is one main reason why I fully avoid latest macs with soldered SSD now, and until this is finally rectified, I will never get one regardless of how good it's performance is.
My intel cherryville 120GB ssd from 2012 is still perfectly healthy. Your laptop will die far longer before your storage could have any issue. This problem is in your head only
I've written a lot on my SSD, every day about 4tb and it was just fine. They will live without issues for many years. PRobably the whole mac will fail before the SSD
@@Coolie-ds4tu Okay, but what about if you change your workflow and decide you need way more storage than 120GB? Buying a new computer isn't the best solution when literally the only problem is storage capacity.
Amazing. I'd call it LEL (Less Electronics on Landfills) adapter.
Or EWP (E-Waste Prevention) device
Top lel
LEL!
why not LOL? (less obsolescence on landfills)
terrible names that sound like they were conceived by 12 year olds
Very impressive job! I'd call it the "Apple Slicer"
"Storage Slice or NAND Slice", just to leave room for "Memory/RAM Slice" or other IO when those eventually come out.
Slicing = installing the daughter board
Slicer = someone specialising in slicing
Sliced Apple/Mac = an apple product with this upgrade.
Bro went out his way to design a whole adapter while using comic sans ms in the edit. Damn good work!
IBoff Mat, what can we say??? You hit it out of the park again 🙂
@@MrPnew1 thank you Peter! 😄
McNAND (can be pronounced “Mac-NAND”, but as far as Apple’s lawyers are concerned, it’s “Mick-NAND”)
Alternative: McNAND, but the full name is "Modular connector for NAND"
@dosdude1 Rubbing his hands together. Laughing menacingly. 😂😂
just wait a couple weeks, he'll have a video out I'm sure
@@joshm264 installing 8 tb modules
Wow, amazing. I hope this became popular and available in every repair shop. As a way to upgrade storage capacity I can't see it competing with an NVME in an external enclosure but as a way to save a dead computer it's amazing!!
Good job guys. You are doing important work. The possibility of modification is very necessary.👍👍👍
ya this will save lots of macs from the trash bin
I’ve been imagining the solution for a long time as a mod. It was just an obvious mod to me, but I lacked the technical skills to do it. Thank you.
That's showing them (the rotten apples) how it's f***ing done. You're all heroes and geniuses
This is awesome and excellent idea, well done folks!👍Apple should watch this 24/7 to know what their customers REALLY NEED and ask for! Even gaming consoles which do more less one thing can upgrade storage...
Great job. You just burned Apple and put a hit on your head. Expect Apple lawyers visiting you in the next week or so.
Love to see That, I’m Not the Only One, That put the theme of Oppenheimer in the background while working😂🔥🔥
"A new revolutionary TPM security module has been added to our M5, thats makes each RAM chip unique, just for your security" :D
Congrats for making this a reality! Its a very nice and clean solution and ignore those amateurs who are not able to comprehend what they just saw :D
I would call it the Macromancer since it can revive dead macs
I, am, APPALLED at the fact they don‘t even TURN ON without the ssd. This is REPULSIVE. You, my friend. Just did what needed to be done. And i am so grateful. Thank you. ❤
It's just Apple being disgustingly cheap again - on the older machines, the boot code was stored in an SPI flash so even if the drive stopped working the unit could at least power up. On the newer machines, it's striped across the NAND chips used by the SSD so if any of them fails the boot code can't load. This saves them the cost of the SPI flash (I.E. < $1 at the sort of quantities that Apple is dealing with) since they are now stuffing the boot code into the SSD area that the customer has already paid for.
@@TrimeshSZ it's not the cost of the spi, it's the fact that if the storage fails, you're buying a new computer. an spi chip can be replaced easily even by ppl with minimal skills. the nands however are a different beast.
Lets call it the McStore or the SideStore. Hope for someday it could be up-gradable using a 2230 nvme storage
Sidestore is an app for iOS to side load though
@@jitterrypokery1526 didn’t knew that. I’m not from Europe (please let us have sideloding worldwide)
Doing this before an Apple event was a bold move
Keep the green PCB, since this is a green board! Upgrades keep our Macs out of landfill
Nice job! Obvious names for those PCBs would be "Tim" and "Steve" I guess, because back in old days when Steve Jobs was in charge we didn't had to deal with this kind of crap (should be clear, that "Tim" is the PCB which has be soldered onto the logic board).
Apple won't buy in to this, but their legal department will probably be in touch very soon. 😆
To those who complain that the process isn't shown - he does not need to. If you could not figure out how he did it just from this video. You are definitely 100% not the right person to know about how its done, as you replicating what he did will almost definitely cause more hardware damage from ignorance.
A common layperson won't have the tool nor skills to pull it off, it would just be encouraging stupidity. You need to work with BGA components (which require the necessary solder masks and precise placement which can be assisted by a machine), a hot air rework station and possibly a preheating plate to prevent thermal damage to the PCB. He also definitely drilled the PCB to hold it in place with an M3 screw, which unless you really know what you are doing, are definitely going to accidentally cut traces, or even build electrostatic charge from the polycarb dust flying out. Even if he sold the kit, only skilled repairmen will take up the work since BGA hard to deal with, the interposer/adapter PCB is not something you could just solder with a generic solder kit.
But if you want a summary of the parts he basically created
1) Interposer/adapter module - connected to the BGA slots where the old NAND used to sit. Its designed with a M3 mounting screw, but you probably cannot replicate it exact position unless you have the board schematics to know that part of the PCB is safe to drill through and has no traces.
2) A removable PCB with 2 SSD NAND chips - these have to match apple's allowed NAND for it to work - so you have to find documentation on what exact chips work for your exact model
thank you for deciding for others what they need or dont need to know in a youtube video, great way of thinking
So Apple have PCIe (?) pads sitting right next to the storage modules ?
You still need to solder on the carrier board, right ?
With a bit or re-organising, they could build in regular (maybe 1 sided) NVMe ... they just don't want to
@@Wannes_ doesn’t pan out in their favour. Why help people replace the SSD when you can have them replace the whole board?
They don't have PCIe pads next to storage modules, if you look closely there are two green PCBs, the one at the bottom is soldered where the original NAND's were located.
It's an Apple proprietary version of PCI-E used for these SSDs, so this simply reroutes the signals to a common port (M.2) where the original NANDs can be placed onto a PCB with that card edge. All this does is make the original signals and chips modular.
Why would they?
With removable storage people would buy base model and then upgrade ssd for like 50$... By soldering storage they can charge 200$ for 512GB and when the SSD fails customers are forced to buy new device. It's almost infinite money glitch and screw the customers they are only as good as full are their wallets.
That's why I would never buy anything Apple in my life.
A normal M.2 won’t work, as the storage controller into the Mac’s board, and Apple solders on NAND chips. However, just like the Mac Studio (and this mod), all Apple needs to do is put an expansion port on the board, and offer a NAND module. And you’re right, they definitely can do it, and they definitely choose not to. And I find that very frustrating.
Oh my god you guys are malaysian and are just in the Selangor area! Will definitely keep you guys in mind, but aside from Ram, your work will definitely extend the life of the aging M1s when the SSDs die out.
how about P.I.E. - Portable Input/Output Environment, introducing the Apple P.I.E.
‘iBoff Removable Datas” SSD! I’ll take 1 Terrabyte Please! 😂
NO PERFORMANCE CHANGE. The biggest slaps in the face.😂😂😂
'iExpand' module or EXPNAND module maybe? haha! Great job as always.
iExpand maybe have conflicting with iXpand that owned by Western Digital Corporation
@@tomislavdiaz6955 Bummer!
Nice work! Thank you for pushing the evolution of Macbooks even further! :)
40 years ago an ATARI 2600 already had plug-in interfaces, but Apple still can't do it. Apple is laughable.
cant?
no, they can, they can do anything, as proven over the decades
the reason to not do it is to remove points of failure, people upgrading things and damaging them in the process or applying rma for things nor proplerly connected on the motherboard
also to force you to pay as much as possible for te highest storage possible from the start, they will not get money from aram or storage upgrade, so why let it happen?
it has also planned obsolescence implications
there is a difference between they can't and they won't.
I hope you hit 100k before this year ends, because you deserve it ❤
Great! Is this available to buy from you? Possible also to upgrade RAM?
RAM may not be possible due to the memory controller embedded into the silicon itself, being inaccessible.
@@jonny11bonk The memory chips (not the controller) is not embedded into the silicon, contrary to popular belief. Its just sitting extremely close to the apple silicon chip on the SoC, hence this reduces latency by design (of apple unified memory).
Another video by iBoff did show why he couldn't pull it off. Its external to the SoC (it sits outside of the lid covering the actual Apple silicon chip), but its so close to the SoC chip that its super difficult to remove only the 2 RAM chips without accidentally overheating the SoC and its other small passives. He also showed that its very easy to accidentally delaminate the PCB board.
Those have little chance to have an upgrade adaptor - this is due to the fact that memory capacity on Macs are "hardcoded" into the resistors on certain pins likely going to a memory controller on the chip footprint itself.
Upgrade itself is not impossible, but the fact that it is hard to remove the RAM chips in the first place and then safely solder a new set onto the SoC makes the task risky.
Wow! What an innovation! Once apple starts doing this, everyone else will too!
the sarcasm is strong on this comment, i hope
Imma save you 6:29 minutes : nowhere is it shown how the adapter connects to the motherboard.
Adapter is soldered to the old nand pad.
So, you need to remove the old one first and soldered the adapter.
I think this process need the profesional hand or else the macbook will ruin.
cx: i want to upgrade my macbook storage
guy's at iboff: just send us your macbook and will make that sorcery happen
You have great taste in music my brother. This channel inspired me to stop buying Apple products. I’m never supporting a company like this again.
So you buy from other companies with even worse ethics
Ethics? Are you really defending Apple’s ethics? This is the same company that consistently works with factories exploiting workers to meet production demands. Other companies are guilty too, but that doesn’t make Apple any better. Or does their “2030 carbon neutral” propaganda magically erase all their wrongdoings?
They got caught with their pants down for slowing down old iPhones without warning consumers. It’s strange how their ethics never came into play when it came to disclosing their actions.
For a company claiming “amazing ethics,” their anti-repair tactics speak volumes. They actively prevent their suppliers from selling parts directly to third parties, hindering independent repair shops from sourcing components and offering cheaper repair options compared to Apple. That MKBHD interview with John Ternus was laughably bad. The irony was off the charts. “wE dEsIgN pRoDuCtS tO lAsT lOnG.”
I would pay for this to be done to my mac. I really like it. Awesome work!
4:00 such user-hostile design apple is implementing... thx to that i'm not apple user.
YES I am struggling with the same issue!
I would called it Mac Ripper 💪
give this man a nobel!
Looks like this is working on 2017 ish era Mac’s? Very interesting, very nice!
That's a 2020 M1 MacBook Pro.
@@trshcln6937 I’m basing my comment on the tindie store which lists kits for 2017 ish Mac’s but no m1 MacBooks
That is brilliant.
Great stuff, this part should be able to help repair shops globally revive repair computers and cut down e-waste.
Ntendo: Bruh, do ya need a decent C&D lawyer?
Cook: DM me. Thanks, Bruh.
u're doing great job, I wish I could do this for my M1 Mac mini that starts to get full with 4 years OS updates!
I thought you were going to show us how the slot is attached to the board.
They could but they choose not to…..
In the last bit of the video you can see that it needs soldered on to the board.
soldered, he must be working on mutiple models for the pcb, so not ready to show all details but i bet is soldered where the nanad chips were soldered, simple and smart solution i must say
Ah, ok. My apologies….
Pretty sweet. Now we just need upgradable memory, and we'll really be set!
you work better than the 160,000 apple employees we need more people like you
Awesome! Like the Rosetta Expander Mod Chip!
what is the rosetta expander mod chip? searched youtube and google couldnt find anything? But it sounds intresting
Louis rossmann needs to see this!
Far as names for the devices go, I would call the adapter board the i.2, and the M.2-attached storage module iNAND. So the i.2 module is installed into the NAND storage BGA location, and the iNAND modules are inserts for the i.2.
@LouisRossmann is proud of you bro xD
This was just a matter of time. You are awesome guys!
Great work!
Please, would there also be a way to upgrade the RAM? Thank you very much in advance.
AINT NO WAY
Amazing work. Just goes to show that there's no reason SSDs shouldn't be on sticks. But I also think you should've clarifued that while you're using a regular m.2 port, it is not compatible with regular SSD's and is just a pinout for Apple's regular NANDs in a carrier board.
check if there are any other devices wich have soldered ssds. So you can make a design compatible to mutltiple devices.
This is great, thanks for pushing/creating this direction
How do you overcome that serialization problem of the NAND, that generally you can replace it only with NAND chip from the same MacBook , from the same place in a MacBook, you cannot just take 2 chips from the shell
they have information on this in previous videos (or a single video). They have to reprogram the nand-chips in accordance to their placing etc.
They did in fact solve this. Which is just amazing to me!
@@IkaruzZuraki no, reprograming working only on Intel machines, please see the video
@@ronlevon4294 I could've sworn there was. a m1/m2 configuration out already ... I might be wrong here. I'll look into it once more!
as long as the chips are supported, it doesn't matter. the programming of the chips is done in dfu mode, using an other mac.
I love the content so much I'll forgive you for using comic sans
How do you attach the m.2 slot? How can you say no soldering?
it literally says no soldering *after* the modification
@@oogabooga9546 so no soldering after the soldering, you can’t have the second part without the first soldering….it requires soldering
@@whatarewedoing0 yes it does require soldering to attach the m.2 but no more soldering any ssd's to upgrade anymore after modification is what they meant.
Omg wow! I wonder if this will fit my 2018 15’ MacBook Pro?
name for PCBs
the base "suck it"
nand bord "apple"
iBoff_5UCk1t-Rev1
iBoff_4ppl3_subboard
:^)
I'm pretty sure I heard this guy say fuctuate. Brilliant.
Equaliser : ended the apple storage royalty empire
This is Genius, i hope you make a LOT of money 👍
They don’t show whether there’s a performance degrading and latency increase of the 1/2/4/8TB models.
256GB model is the SLOWEST model.
M.2 storage should have no problems.
I'm not s sure about 2/4/8TB models, which exceeds 5GB/s speeds
I don't know what you did exactly, or how you did it, but this really seems like heroic work. I love Apple products, but man, they make some nefarious design decisions. Since they refuse to explain why there would be any benefits to designing their unified system this way, I consider it a tech's moral *responsibility* to try and hack it and fix it.
You should have tested the performance.
However, the M Ultra has a removable SSD, but However, the M Ultra has a removable SSD, but MAGIC, it won't let you put a bigger memory.
Thank you Apple
This is amazing! There is no excuss for apple to solder storage.
Excellent Job!
Name Suggestion: RMSC (Removable Modular Storage Card)
You guys are legends. Keep up the good work. I dream to be like you!!!
Amazing video. Hats offs to you 🙌🏻♥️🔥
The idea is awesome!!! Please, proceed with it!
This concept is perfect and even the prototype is great! need this lol
Two questions:
1. Are you doing this also for Intel-cpu versions? How much?
2. Are you selling second-hand macs with this mod already made? I would happily buy one. I have and old 2018 intel-cpu which ssd will die any day now and I would love to have a reparaible (to an extent) mac.
Subscribed just for this video. Will this modification fit inside the chassis of the new shape Macbook Pro 16 inch?
Once the NANDs are restored in DFU mode, can they be swapped between motherboards without losing data or are they effectively tied to the board they were first restored to?
make the rams upgradable now, great work