The new Mac Mini takes a small step towards upgradeable storage

Apple’s redesigned Mac Mini M4 has ditched the previous M2 machine’s SSD that was soldered to the logic board, as confirmed by teardowns like this one posted on X, showing it has a single removable SSD module. It’s not Apple’s first desktop computer to go in this direction, as we saw similar modules in the Mac Studio and Mac Pro.

However, as noted by MacRumors, it’s probably similar to their storage with only the NAND chips on board and the controller is still embedded in the SoC, tightly restricting any possible DIY upgrade or repair options.

In a second video clip, also sourced from Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, the person replaces the NAND chips on the board with larger ones that take it up to 2TB. According to the person who reposted them, they were able to get it working, similar to what we’ve seen from Mac hackers like Dosdude upgrading the storage on the Mac Studio. It also shows how the Mac Mini’s WiFi chip and antenna are mounted directly on the back of its air intake on the bottom of the machine.

The other thing we’ve learned is that the base Mac Mini’s module has two 128GB NAND chips instead of a single 256GB one, which means we don’t expect to see a performance bottleneck compared to the previously released base model M-Series Macs. Apple returned to two 128GB chips on the M3 MacBook Air released last April.

Update, November 8th: Added another teardown video.