| I'm not persuaded that the stated facts lead inevitably to the conclusion they reached. From another article (linked from the Verge post): "* YouTuber Luke Miani decided to test whether or not the machine is actually upgradable through a series of comprehensive tests…" "* Miani took the wiped SSD from the second machine and inserted it in the open slot on the first machine, but the Mac’s status light blinked SOS and it wouldn’t boot up" "* He then swapped the SSDs between two Mac Studios and found again that neither would boot" "* In a disappointing move, it appears that Apple has locked user-upgradability in software (the device recognizes the SSD, but Apple stops it from booting)." Given Apple's recent attention to security at the hardware/firmware level, it is possible that, for example, Apple is requiring some type of hardware authentication from the SSD, and not simply to prevent the user from upgrading their SSD. (Along the same lines as the T2 chip, is what I'm imagining.) I'm not a security person, so I don't know if this is likely. I'd be interested in the thoughts of any of you who do know this stuff. Is there a valid security purpose that could explain this? |
Because the machine now sees flash that doesn't belong together in a single disk and (quite sensibly) refuses to assemble that into a volume. A DFU restore might fix this.
> He then swapped the SSDs between two Mac Studios and found again that neither would boot
Because the data is encrypted to a key unique to the original machine's SoC, so the other machine can't read it. A DFU restore is likely to fix this.