Once upon a time, Apple’s MacBook used M.2-like SSD modules that could be easily replaced or upgraded. Still, starting from the 2015 MacBook 12 systems, the company began soldering SSD components down to motherboards to make laptops thinner, thus making upgrades virtually impossible. But is it so? A repair shop from Canada offers to upgrade storage on M1-based Macs to up to 2TB at a price lower than Apple’s.
“Thankfully, due to advanced soldering techniques, it is now possible to upgrade the storage space of the newest MacBooks to their highest configuration, for prices lower than what is originally quoted by Apple at purchase,” a statement by VancouverMac.ca reads.
Indeed, a story from April 2021 about a team of engineers who managed to resolder DRAM and NAND flash chips on an M1-based Mac Mini made quite a splash. The engineers from China upgraded the cheapest Mac Mini M1 machine with 8GB of LPDDR4X memory and 256 GB of solid-state storage to a much more decent machine with 16 GB of DRAM and 1 TB of NAND storage. While resoldering may not be a problem for experienced people, Mac upgrades are not simple.
In MacBooks with the T2 chip (2018-2020) and Apple Silicon system-on-chips (M1, M2, M3), the custom firmware of the soldered-down SSD is specific to the configuration of actual NAND chips (or alternative packages). Therefore, these chips cannot be replaced, as firmware modification is required.
Fortunately, according to VancouverMac, the Apple Configurator utility can reprogram the SSD automatically through its restore function on Apple Silicon-based Macs, which makes storage upgrades of these machines a complex but doable task.
The process involves replacing NAND packages with higher-capacity packages supported by Apple (i.e., you need to know which packages Apple supports) and then running Apple Configurator on the machine through another Mac via a USB-C port to reprogram the SSD configuration. The company has even uploaded a video describing the key steps of the upgrade. By contrast, with T2-equipped machines, everything is much more complicated.
VancouverMac offers storage upgrades for M1-based MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops, though it does not quote prices. The company advises you to contact it to find exact quotes as they are probably different for different PCs.
We have emailed VancouverMac to find out more and will update the story once we have more information.
