[thisislife2]

Just a thought - stop bloody soldering the RAM and the SSDs. That partially transfers the burden on to the customers and makes their product more repairable ... Mac Minis (with un-soldered RAM and HDD / SSDs) used to be sold with minimum 4 GB RAM, if I remember right). This, way, you can still sell devices with lower RAM, and customers can upgrade in the future when supply increases.

[pjc50]

It takes up more space and costs more (connectors are surprisingly expensive), as well as adding an electrical overhead, while most (yes, not all) customers don't take advantage of it.

[thisislife2]

That's an acceptable compromise to get a system that can be upgraded and / or repaired. Apple already charges a "premium" so nobody (except their shareholders) are going to cry if they make a dollar or two less on each device because of this. Customers do care about such things when they decide to upgrade their device or, more importantly, when they have to repair it.

[throw0101c]

Not wrong, but some of these space/size/distance concerns were some reasons why the LPCAMM2 format was created:

* https://www.ifixit.com/News/95078/lpcamm2-memory-is-finally-...

* https://www.micron.com/products/memory/dram-components/lpddr...

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAMM_(memory_module)

[anonymars]

Also somewhat less secure (cold boot attack: https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_boot_attack#Preventing_physi...)

[drooopy]

Even though I don't necessarily like it, I understand why they solder the RAM on the SOC: Higher bandwidth/greater performance, better power efficiency, etc. But they have no excuse for the SSD.

[kube-system]

The excuse for the SSD is that the controller is on the SoC

The shortage that connects to a modern Mac isn’t an SSD — it’s raw NAND.

[thisislife2]

Why does the controller need to be on the SoC when the market already has SSDs with built-in controllers that follow a standard and allow you to easily replace it?

[kube-system]

It doesn’t have to be. It is an engineering decision that has design consequences. Integrating it likely has advantages in packaging, performance, power consumption, etc.

[bullen]

100% agree the problem is modular RAM can't handle the timings of the SoC.

There is a new modular RAM standard for precisely that but knowing Apple they will want to make their own.

SSD should be easy but since RAM does not last that much longer you still need to resolder that after 5-10 years!

[Moldoteck]

you can have a mix- 4gb embedded ram + 1-2 slots of slower layer

[whatevaa]

Pretty difficult to code OS to take advantage of that. Basically need NUMA, which increases overall overhead.

Otherwise, you may end up filling up your fast memory with some cold data.

[boredatoms]

If apple cant support NUMA ill eat my hat

[CyberDildonics]

but since RAM does not last that much longer you still need to resolder that after 5-10 years!

Where are you getting this information?

[iamshs]

Another problem is locked hardware. Newest Synology hardware has lifted the HDD locks but still doesn't allow third party SSD and RAM. Mac Mini storage upgrade is a DIY solution, why not use the standard M.2 2230 slot?

[spider-mario]

> Newest Synology hardware has lifted the HDD locks but still doesn't allow third party SSD and RAM.

True of NVMe SSDs, but SATA SSDs are no problem.

[iamshs]

Yes. These units now come with dedicated NVMe slots and they don't accept third party drives.

[aaronsung]

The thing is why do they have to do so? In terms of bargaining power, Apple has the best position comparing to other cell phone/ iPad/ PC vendors. Their software are way more memory efficient than the competitors (like Windows 11 with all the bloated Electron/ Webview2 wrappers).

[thisislife2]

Bloated Electron / WebView wrappers also tout the feature of running on macOS - and many are forced to use such apps on the mac too ... what then? Apple deciding how much RAM is "enough" for you is based on the use case it has decided for each category of the device. If that isn't sufficient for you, you are supposed to buy the more "premium" edition, even if your use case for that is rare. Imagine if you suddenly need more RAM for a popular app 2 years down the line but you can't really do anything on a Mac now a days because the RAM is soldered and fixed. Buying upgrade-able RAM is obviously much cheaper, and much better for the environment, than buying a whole new device.

[kube-system]

This makes everyone’s computer slower, more expensive, and less power efficient, and 95-99% of people will never open their computer anyway.

[kennywinker]

95-99% of first owners, maybe. But when you make devices that can be affordably repaired / expanded, they will be - and then they gain another 5-10 years of useful lifespan for a second owner.

If we ever want computers to be sustainably made - instead of scorching the earth with each new device - we need to stop thinking the way people treat their devices is some natural law of how things will always be.

[kube-system]

> If we ever want computers to be sustainably made - instead of scorching the earth with each new device - we need to stop thinking the way people treat their devices is some natural law of how things will always be.

If this was solved by upgradable components, we would have "solved" e-waste in the 90s.

Component upgradability is not a sustainability solution, because it is architecturally bounded.

[kennywinker]

Hard disagree. First of all, it’s true that upgrades were not a solution to sustainability in the 90s, but the issue was that computers were gaining ground exponentially. In just a few years, everything you had was so outmoded it was hard to imagine hardware that lasted more than maybe 5 years. That has changed.

Second, sustainability isn’t a true false state. My previous computer, a 2015 macbook air, lasted me until this year. If it had upgradable ram it might have lasted me another 5 years. A computer that lasts forever is probably impossible, but 15 years is better than 10, and 10 is better than 5.

[kube-system]

In the same vein, as hardware changes have slowed down since the 90s, so have the causes of obsolescence shifted away from CPU speed or RAM capacity. Lack of TPM/secure boot and end of Windows 10 support is what has recently pressured a lot of PC users to upgrade. End of support for x86 MacOS is what will cause a lot of Mac users to upgrade.

[pmontra]

Anecdotally, I bought a HP laptop in 2014 with the basic 8 GB of internal RAM (4+4) and two 8 GB chips from a third party vendor. I opened the box and immediately threw away the 4+4 and replaced them with the 8+8. As you can guess it was much cheaper than the same 8+8 from HP. With soldered RAM one has to swallow whatever price the laptop manufacturer charges.

[kube-system]

If you're generating e-waste right out of the box, I wouldn't say that's a plus.

[thisislife2]

You are concerned about 2 sticks of RAM as "e-waste" (even though it can be reused), but not about a whole Mac ending up as an e-waste because it can't be repaired or run other system softwares?

[kube-system]

I think if you’re concerned about ewaste at the end of a product’s life you should be equally concerned about products that are ewaste at the beginning of their life. Most PCs are never upgraded, and their socketed components end up in the landfill in vein and at a higher rate.

[thisislife2]

PC's that can be upgraded form the bulk of the second-sales industry and don't end up in the landfill for a few more years because they can be upgraded / repaired and used for a few more years.