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.
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.
Also somewhat less secure (cold boot attack: https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_boot_attack#Preventing_physi...)
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.
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.
This makes everyone’s computer slower, more expensive, and less power efficient, and 95-99% of people will never open their computer anyway.
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.
> 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.
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!
you can have a mix- 4gb embedded ram + 1-2 slots of slower layer
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.
If apple cant support NUMA ill eat my hat
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?
> 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.
Yes. These units now come with dedicated NVMe slots and they don't accept third party drives.