Apple Expands Do-It-Yourself Repair Program to Desktop Macs With M1 Chips and Studio Display

Mac Studio Flash modules available. Told you so.

No you cannot. It is not an SSD, it has no controller on board. It has already been demonstrated that swapping in a higher capacity module does not work. And I would guess you cannot order a higher capacity module to replace the one that shipped. And you cannot order these from a third party either as they are NOT SSDs in the classic sense.

This is simply wrong. You can upgrade, and this is why Apple sells modules in different sizes. Due to the fact those are pure flash modules and not SSDs you of course have to play by the rules set by the SSD controller inside the M1 Max / Ultra SoC. The controller expects a specific combination of flash capacity, and they also need to be put into the correct slots.

Some stupid YouTubers tried putting invalid configurations in their machines and claimed you can't upgrade because it didn't work. They did not realize they simply did not use an allowed configuration. If you use the exact module configuration like Apple would do and initialize properly using Apple Configurator 2, upgrading works just fine.

Also, in theory, you could use third party modules if someone would make them. However, this is unlikely to give you much benefit in terms of cost. The specs of the flash memory NEED to match exactly the original Apple parts, which would be expensive to manufacture, especially when considering this is a niche replacement part. So it's very likely Apple's self service repair store will remain the only place you can get them - aside from sourcing used modules on for example eBay.

Edit: Forgot to add that it's exactly the same on the last Intel Mac Pro by the way. Same flash module concept, same limitations.

All Macs are so difficult to tear down so I feel that Apple is handing over the repair responsibility to us when we make mistakes and break parts. Then they should make Mac to be repairable with easy assembling design, not like Mac Studio.

Nah they're looking quite easy. Only realistically difficult bit is cutting the display adhesive and that's not really that hard.

The hardest bit of repairing any of these things is not dinking any of the parts by dropping them and the manuals go to great extremes telling you how to hold things to avoid that.

This stuff is so much better than a lot of consumer trash out there.

So for the Studio Display, does this mean I could now swap out the mount/stand? Like right now, I've got the Studio Display with the VESA mount option. Could I get all of the necessary parts to move to the Tilt-and-Height stand?

people complaining about right to repair for the past several years still going to be sending it to apple for repairs

i swore i saw so many people convey "we're not asking apple to change the design to make it easier to repair, we're just asking for the ability to do it ourselves". now people are saying "no thanks, that's too difficult"

🤦‍♂️

So you can upgrade the SSD after the fact?

Yes, this had already been tested.

You need to put the SSD blades in the correct slots and use Apple Configurator on another Mac to restore it.