Apple's Secret Operating System and why you can't upgrade your SSD

[@johnwaldmann5222]

There is zero reason preventing Apple from providing an empty secondary m.2 pcie NVMe slot for users to add an unencrypted bulk storage drive. This would vastly improve the security of the average users data, most of which is lost due to Apples SSD failing.

[@dmug]

1000%. That's exactly what the Mac Pro 2019 has (it's default SSD is dumb NANDs with the controller on the T2), I just had to disable the secure boot and I boot off a faster NVMe SSD, the ol' trusty Samsung 970. As much as I try to be hip to Windows, I often forget PC laptops have dual SSDs now.

[@Techfanatic73]

Ya its called Thunderbolt 3 -4 ports. I use an external name in thunderbolt and I get 4800mb/s Zero need for me to use it exclusively internal. This is a problem that like 2% of people have.

[@awsomewe360]

@@Techfanatic73 Internal is alot better for keeping to one single device. On my computers I like to keep local music and movies (because I am usually away from internet when I access those anyways), and it is just plain inconvenient to always have to lug around an extra accessory when im mobile. I had one of those 128gb thumb drives that sit pretty flush to the port, but that overheated and gave up the ghost.

[@drkastenbrot]

@@Techfanatic73 so you have to carry even more expensive external dongles and devices with you?

[@quasar.nebula]

@@drkastenbrot There's no need for dongles except if your device is flat-out starved for ports (which usually isn't relevant because in that case you're already lugging around a bunch of devices), Thunderbolt SSDs are widely accessible and directly connect. And the Mac is gonna be a lot bigger shot to your wallet if it's stolen than a $150 2TB SSD...

[@gaelc13]

This is a very balanced video. Apple, please take note. We are loyal users, we appreciate security, but we WANT upgradability and repairability on the long run.

[@dmug]

I appreciate this. I consider myself an apple fan, love the products with some severe asterisks. I try to make pro Apple videos like my Apple gaming vid but also find myself very cynical.

[@rogerwilco2]

I have given up and bought a Windows PC last year, after using Apple since 1997. My best Mac was my 2012 Mac Pro, with GTX980, PCIe SSDs, 32 GB ram and upgraded CPUs.

[@fss1704]

Great, you're loyal, that's why they will keep treating you like shit, you will buy their shit either way and be happy. It will only change when the apple base get promiscuous.

[@dmug]

@@rogerwilco2 Understandable if you're doing GPU heavy tasks. Apple's GPUs are amazing for the per-watt performance but if you're into gaming, 3D modeling, ML training, LLMs, Stable Diffusion, AI voice synthesis and so on, so much of it is just oodles faster on PCs thanks to Nvidia just mopping the floor with the best Apple can put it. CUDA more popular than ever.

[@ryanlowseck1164]

They don’t care they never will while their sheep continue to buy their crap.

[@murdockscott]

As much as I love Apple products, their outrageous memory and storage pricing along side their increasingly limited upgradeability have often made me consider other options. They play a dangerous game with the strain they place on their user’s loyalty.

[@MartinMenge]

They can own their segment of the market because there are no other players out there offering a the whole package: Hardware, exclusive operating system, ecosystem...

[@drkastenbrot]

youre not the only one. macbook sales are down A LOT and still falling. i hope that apple acts under pressure. i already switched over to framework though and i dont think i want to ever go back. every part is swappable and reusable.

[@reekinronald6776]

@@drkastenbrot Apple has positioned itself as a luxury brand. Aesthetically pleasing and does have the feel of being well designed, but like all luxury brands, is the extra cost worth it? We are living in tougher economic times, no matter, what the politicians say, and people start cutting back on what are considered luxury items when they can get similar functionality with cheaper options.

[@dingdong2103]

The new Mx product line make the devices very cost effective. You're just wasting your money by going Intel and by God, using Windows? Really?

[@murdockscott]

@@dingdong2103 I agree that it would make no sense at all to invest in anything outside of Apple ecosystem right now as they have a huge advantage with Apple Silicon, but before the M1 came out, I was holding off buying new equipment for several years and seriously considering something different for the first time in decades. I doubt I would have purchased a windows machine, but I was researching how viable it would be to run Linux or trying to figure out if I could live with a hackintosh. Of course those options are less attractive at the moment, but who knows what will happen in the future. Configuring my Mac Studio M1 Max was a brutal experience because I require large amounts of storage and ram. The idea that those components are not really replaceable makes it difficult to accept the outrageous prices that Apple charges. I understand the advantages of unified ram and even accept the necessity of SSD drives that are not user swappable, but Apple is alienating customers by charging so much for those upgrades.

[@albatrossrap]

I'm so happy to see that your video finally gets the views it really deserves!!! You do such an important job for the whole community, I wish all of your videos to be viewed as this one! Very informative and clear as usual👏

[@dmug]

Thanks, I dunno if I’ll have another video blow up like this but I have a follow up to this one.

[@trinhvanquan8443]

After your explanation. I feel like Apple trying to prevent user from being upgraded rather than care about their privacy. As an engineer I see the point that they can improve the solution to not to comprise upgradability and security. But Apple choose the hardest and weirdest solution. So disappointed

[@fss1704]

Oh, it was the easiest and simplest solution to their easy money problem.

[@robertidonotsharemyfullnam496]

Amen ! Upgradeability and serviceability should be a right not a privilege. Components that are know to be used up (battery, storage) should be replaceable even if you have to pay a small and reasonable fee for having it done "in house".

[@MartinMenge]

The market needs something like Framework Laptops with its own BSD based operating system. Plenty of people out there that will ditch windows if there was another option that offered a whole banana solution like Apple.

[@danepher]

@@MartinMenge Making such a solution is very expensive, and making people switch from windows or mac is even harder. You will absolutely need something to differentiate yourself from the stable companies. I highly doubt such a company will exist. In case of Framework, it just hardware, and you can install whatever you want on it pretty much like a usual desktop PC, but just a laptop.

[@Dave102693]

@@MartinMenge or you can go Google lol

[@MartinMenge]

@@Dave102693 yeah no lol

[@Dave102693]

@@MartinMenge Chrome OS does the job for millions of people . Now if only they had native professional software available….

[@flyicestormpluto]

Thanks for making this informative video! I totally agree with you when you said "Apple should not be able to hide behind security as a smoke screen [to] force anti-consumer behavior."

[@paws315]

Agreed, best quote of the video! Consumer protection agencies should recognize this obfuscated form of harm. If anyone knows contact info for regulators for this I’d appreciate it. Not sure if it’s the FTC but this anti consumer behavior really seems worth broadcasting to regulators. It’s new and the government is slow

[@Dave102693]

Explains why iPads get iCloud bricked or Apple turning MacOS into iPad/iOS with extra steps.

[@protocetid]

"Trillions of dollars isn't enough." -Apple

[@biffmercury]

After 22 years of loyalty to Apple products, I bought my first PC since 1999, when it was just way above my price range to get a Mac to do what I needed. Sorry Apple, but I tried to stick with you, but you pushed me away with your outrageously greedy pricing tiers. Clearly Apple doesn’t need my business to survive, and their computer sales haven’t been the biggest money maker since before the iPhone was introduced. I wish they would just separate into a computer company and a small device company, because at least they might start being competitive in the computer market again. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.

[@UpLateGeek]

Thanks for the explanation, that makes a lot of sense. I definitely don't agree with apple's arguments why even _they_ can't offer an option to upgrade SSDs though. I can plug in an external drive, and they don't make a peep about how insecure it is to use it to store my precious data. If they were really concerned about security, wouldn't it make sense to force me to encrypt that drive as well, and not allow it to be decrypted on any other machine, just like the internal storage? Oh right, you can't encrypt an external drive because that would make them vulnerable to the same alleged attack as swapping the internal drive. Except when you swap the SSD in a mac strudelo and do a DFU restore.

[@ashwinbalaji5745]

in a sense they do, for external ssd or hdd will be in apfs or exfat filesystem(fat32? come on we arent dumb!). they dont support ntfs or other filesystems. so in a sense they may have implemented some sort of security in apfs filesystem

[@Teluric2]

They just want you to buy a bigger capacity Mac.

[@himynameisryan]

You can’t upgrade your ssd because it’s not an ssd you’re removing, it’s just the NAND chips. All ssds have controllers, which is not on that board that can be removed in the mac studio.

[@jamesbuckwas6575]

Then have SSDs with their own controllers use their own controllers, and disable the added security features on the Secure Enclave, instead using regular encryption or whatever else. And say that "by replacing your SSD, you are opening your data up to a few possible security attacks".

[@himynameisryan]

@@jamesbuckwas6575 yeah i think apple has the controllers inside the chip due to efficiency & speed, even in the LTT video about it Linus discussed *why* they do this

[@meorung05]

Then why can’t you take a 512gb drive from a mac to replace a 218gb mac?

[@himynameisryan]

@@meorung05 cause swapping random nand chips would confuse tf out of the controller Imagine going to your ssd and you remove a single nand chip, why do the rest stop working? The controller doesn’t know what to do

[@Teluric2]

​@@jamesbuckwas6575it an excuse to stop upgrade.

[@rolandmetivier4437]

3:45 L4-based microkernels are pretty interesting, and Apple Silicon using it is also interesting. I’ve been thinking of coding something based on the L4 concept.

[@fss1704]

Intel does xenix

[@dwaynestimpson5449]

I agree whole heartedly. I have been using Macs since 2010, and I have not had issues with them, I love the reliabilty. I am concerned when I do decide to go from my upgradeable iMacs (pre 2020), cMP etc to the new M2s or whatever comes next that I may be dumping money into a product with the potential to be useless in a few years. I like to hold onto them as long as possible, Like many here I still rock a cMP. Keeping a Mac for more than a few years is important to me. The latest Mac I have is a M1 Mini with 16gb of Memory and 1TB SSD, it runs perfect but long term? Only time will tell.

[@dmug]

I feel like that’s the smart move, it seems like the move to do is upgrade every 3-4 years by selling off your old Mac rather than buying the higher end ones now. I bought the M1 Max and should have bought the M1 Pro laptop.

[@sly2792004]

2013 and younger for ram and 2016 and earlier for ssd. a 2019 mac cant have its ssd or ram replaced. its not a issue only with apple silicon

[@dingdong2103]

You can avoid all these problems by doing do diligence with your backups. It's just laughable when people blame apple when they skipped doing backups in the first place.

[@ggproductions7078]

​@@dingdong2103 the point is not the data loss, it is the fact that your internal ssd dies and you need the whole board replaced. I am in that bracket by the way and I back up everything.

[@reverendbarker650]

I had a new 27 inch imac in 2010, logic board went under warranty.... the repair bill was $3000 and gpu performance was lousy, I sold it asap and bought a used mac pro, I can upgrade GPU, drives and RAM myself for a fraction of what apple would charge me, and I can fit 4 hard drives in the case , i think apples direction since they made the mac pro beyond the budget of the average consumer and the rest of their lineup having no user replaceable parts is deplorable and an insult to the consumer.

[@OzMediaOfficial]

I recently snagged a mac studio, and I basically knew I had to get the 8TB SSD which is far overkill, but considering how Adobe just nukes scratch disks, I knew it would be needed if I wanted this to last a few years.

[@formxshape]

That’s a really bad choice. It’s better to get a 1tb Mac Studio and then get a few fast SSD’a with fast cables for scratch use only and for project assets. All that scratch/cache read/writing rapidly ages a SSD. Also multiple drives allow a flow of data, eg a SSD for your assets, an SSD to export to. With one big 8TB drive, you have created a data bottleneck, and the more you write and read data to the drive the more you reduce the age of your Mac and bring closer the time when that SSD will die. Also multiple small drives are easier to back up, and you no longer have a single point of failure. That 8TB dies and it’s game over. And 8TB means you now need to buy at least an 4tb drive to back it up to.

[@dmug]

Oz media: I sorta did the same with my M1 Max and got 2 TB. Formxshape: larger SSDs do have a lot longer life just with more cells to rotate but yeah, adding an external drive for scratch is a good move as the adobe cc is one of the few suites that let you define your scratch disk, and spreading out your scratch media does help.

[@OzMediaOfficial]

@@formxshape I mean I eventually plan to get a raid enclosure with a few 512gb SSDs for scratch disk purposes. I probably would have been fine with a 4TB for sure, but 8k footage takes up a lot of space, and I haven't gotten around to snagging a storage medium that has an equivalent transfer rate. Currently waiting on a thunderbolt 4 NVME enclosures like what OWC offers at T3 atm. With thunderbolt 3 being locked at just around 2GBs for most NVME enclosures, it's not quick enough to reliably work on raw 4k footage in real time.

[@BogWraith1]

Couldn't agree more with your take. I too love Apple's products, especially the Mac, but the way they force obsolescence is downright maddening. Releasing a new macOS & iOS every year also contributes to the built in time clock that starts the minute you boot your brand new device & that really pisses me off to no end! This will be the eventual fate of the Mac Studio I bought last June. As a recent subscriber to your channel, I have hope now that I can upgrade my 2009 Mac Pro with some new hardware and installing a newer OS to it so I can continue to use it as a server as well as running a lot of 32 bit apps and games I still use.

[@dmug]

Monterey runs well on the Mac Pro 5,1s and totally agree that yearly OSes has taken a toll on it's OSes. I'd rather go back to large point releases that feature meaningful quality of life fixes.

[@thebeeamberheardsdogsteppe6368]

ue mac studio would run for atleats 10 years. so chill. u get atleasts 5-7 years updates and after the updates end u still get 3 years security updates

[@sonicmistress]

@@thebeeamberheardsdogsteppe6368 You're missing the point, no amount of SW 'support' will make a planned doorstop work! 'Security Updates' LOL Apples excuse for dropping support for older products, that stll work fine....And are still secure enough to be used on a daily basis. Anyone who buys a product, especially for production work, that can't be easily fixed or upgraded needs to visit a therapist about being sucked off by Apple....

[@dmug]

Correction: Looks like there's the ability swap and upgrade NANDs on Apple Silicon, I've made a follow up video. kzbin.info/www/bejne/qJTHhWeHiaeibdE I've made this video a blog post format for anyone who prefers reading to video essay format: blog.greggant.com/posts/2023/04/14/the-security-enclave-demystified.html

[@chillinJohnny]

I don't get the expendable storage part. If you as user have a limited rights and you are already not treated as admin of your pc, and this whole security system is running in a separate place and Apple constantly brags about that it's soo secure shouldn't you easily be able to expand your storage without compromising your security? And if not doesn't that mean that it's just a shitty and lazy security solution if all you need to compromise it is a storage device

[@Stopinvadingmyhardware]

So Tim really doesn’t like trannies? 😅

[@dmug]

@@chillinJohnny Hardware and software are often independent vectors for malware. macOS uses a combination of techniques like signed code and system integrity protection along with baking security into the file system as APFS with metadata integrity protection and /System existing on a read-only partition that the root user doesn't have access to modify without disabling several things. In the case of external storage, a Thunderbolt NVMe could theoretically be physically modified to use DMA attacks scrape active system memory to loot logins and passwords and encryption keys. However, the Secure Enclave both thwarts these and also encrypts the active memory. With T2 Macs (and I presume Apple Silicon, I just haven't external booted on my M1 Max), you need to reduce your security settings if you want to boot off of an external SSD by booting into the System Restore partition (Again, another level of APFS containerizing) which has the user account that can change the base security setitngs in macOS.

[@josephcadwell6773]

I love that Apple has the ability and the talent to innovate. On the other hand, I believe manufacturers have a fundamental responsibility to the customer. The right to repair and modify the products we purchase is sacrosanct.

[@dmug]

Thanks, it's refreshing that at least some people have a bit of nuanced view other than "APPLE BAD!" or "WHO CARES NO ONE UPGRADES THEIR COMPUTER" or "APPLE IS THE BEST THEREFORE THIS IS THE BEST PATH FORWARD"

[@davidcmcchesney]

Thanx again. You are the Best ! Thanx to you I have 7 Mac Pros running different Mac Os’s & even Hyper-V server ( they make nice servers 12 cores, 64 GB RAM, NVMe , ect

[@dmug]

Damn, that's quite the arsenal. The most I ever had was two Mac Pro 5,1s and my 3,1.

[@hishnash]

you can upgrade the SSD but you need to use the same NAND dies (from the same vendor) as you expect and you need to DFU reset the firmware. you can infact upgrade the Mac Studios SSD but you need to ensure the new configuration you provide matches exactly one of the confines apple sells. That means the capacity of the stick sand the vendor used for that capacity must match. The firmware will let you do this but what you cant do is take two 500GB modules to make a 1TB since the 1TB configuration apple sells does not use two sticks it used 1. Also even if you have 1 TB sticks you cant just use these to make up a 2TB as these sticks are paired, while the socket it the same the stick that goes in socket 1 needs to know it is socket 1 and the stick that goes in socket 2 needs to know it is in socket 2, a little bit like the old jumpers on IDE drives that you had to configure. however with these modules there is nothing you can configure they are hard backed from the factory to be for socket 1 or socket 2. If you take 2 1TB sticks (for socket 1) and put them into a single macStudio you have two sticks that both think they are for the first socket... and thus cant work.

[@fss1704]

A completely made up bs, now you could use linux in a framework laptop but then you whine about the free softwre and don't donate money to make it better. Hell, i wonder if 1% of people bought framework and donated the difference to foss then apple would be fked pretty quick.

[@UpandDownRacing]

not only zero upgrades, it's high rate of failure on the 2018 and newer macs is really a problem past 3 to 5 years. :(

[@dmug]

I haven't noticed or read anything about it beyond the usual. I imagine in about 2 years with those Mac Minis will start seeing some SSD failures.

[@CaseyFleetMedia]

I e been using Mac for years and never once had SSD failure

[@superqaxclub]

@@dmug i have been using M1 Mac mini (8GB RAM) for 2 years and no SSD problem so far, people are just over exaggerating the problem.

[@dmug]

@@superqaxclub If I were to bet, Apple will stop supporting the M1 Minis before there's mass failures. However as we move forward and applications become more RAM heavy, as they inevitably do, it's getting to be more of a questionable decision Apple still sells the 8GB/256GB configs. There's been a few glitches like that one where M1s would go crazy on cache with a certain set of tasks (can't remember what was the root) that probably shaved a year off a few people's SSDs. The biggest issue I have is most PCs sold have replaceable SSDs and Apple is the extreme outlier so if there's a problem or if you simply want more storage, you're stuck with what you bought.

[@onecalledchuck1664]

You misspelled "planned obsolescence."

[@WayneWatson1]

This is the very reason I swapped all our macs at our church over to PCs and many people I know are doing the same thing. I can replace any part on the PC for $100 or so. If memory or storage goes out on the mac, it's an $1800 replacement cost

[@hyperseah]

Yes. I have 10 years old PCs and notebooks that I have upgraded with SSD and extra RAM to Win 10 and they are still very useful for productivity purpose (not gaming).

[@mark-esper]

Disquieting stuff. As a M1 Max Studio with 64Gb RAM, the future still looks grim. Would running the OS / apps etc. off an external drive reduce the wear on the internal memory? If so, what kind of storage solution would people recommend for comparable performance?

[@dmug]

I wouldn’t worry nearly as much with a larger SSD and that much RAM as you probably have the 1 TB model. There’s a helluva lot more cells to rotate. It’ll almost certainly live long enough to be unsupported by apple. It’s mostly sad though as say in 15 years or 20 years when the next generation of people looking to explore retro tech used, they won’t be able to easily restore a Mac Studio

[@magicmanchloe]

The time bomb is so much worse than most people realize, apple actually stripes the iboot partition and the OS and all user data across all of the nand packages in what is a proprietary equivalent to RAID 0. This means that even if you have say 4tb of storage all it takes is for the endurance of one single, 512 GB nand package to run out for the entire system to become corrupt and unusable. And because the boot partition is stored on the nand striped in the same way as the OS data, you cannot even boot the system off an external drive, making it truly e-waste.

[@dmug]

To be fair, NVMe run NANDs in parallel to achieve the speeds they do and Apple like all SSDs, uses wear leveling, bad block management,TRIM, write amplification reduction, DRAM caching, over provisioning. It’s basically the same as everyone else and same issues as when TPM2.0 fails but just with the kick in the nuts the iBoot renders the Mac unbootable and apple ships their macs with stupidly low storage options and ram

[@benjamilindqvist912]

You can upgrade. The secure enclave gets reconfigured when you restore your mac in dfu mode with Apple Configurator which is free of charge.

[@dmug]

yep, made a follow up to this kzbin.info/www/bejne/qJTHhWeHiaeibdE

[@jrm332]

Oh it can be done, they just don’t want to implement it in an user friendly way, but I have Mac OS installed on a 2TB NVME SSD with a thunderbolt enclosure on my M1 mini, It just lets you do it. You need to authorise the user in the external drive OS with the one in the internal storage the first time, afterward I have an Automator script on login to unmount the internal storage so nothing uses it accidentally. They just need to add a way that doesn’t use the OS in the internal storage, like checking Apple ID in recovery mode or something and you’re good to go.

[@fss1704]

Fuck, why would they care, they are paid to not care

[@UnknownPerson667]

Commenting for KZbin algorithm to support your channel

[@dmug]

Much appreciated.

[@TheRealLink]

As a PC enthusiast who also troubleshoots and works on Macs now and then I can't deny their streamlined approach and aesthetics but the absolute lack of upgradability kills it for me. Found your channel on a whim and you hit the nail exactly as to why I won't choose to own one. Hopefully Apple changes how this goes on in the future as I've serviced a few Macs pre 2016 when you actually could add RAM, SSDs and so on.

[@dmug]

I do have an interesting follow up video in the works that you might find interesting.

[@kienhwengtai8113]

Doesn't this kill any value of 2nd hand Macs as the storage is probably worn down severely and you cannot replace it

[@KevinMillard68]

so your saying non M1 M2 and M3s dont have the SEPOS then because many older macs non apple silicon can have the SSDs upgrade and can also run the most current mac os as well so this being a fact you need to explain this part of what iam saying here

[@crystalchaos462]

I had a White MacBook that I was able to yank the spinning HD out of and replace with a SATA SSD. I probably got more years out of that machine that Apple ever intended. I used it until it basically fell apart. It shipped with Leopard and the last OS for it was El Cap. However, it also dual booted into Windows XP, 7, 8.1, and 10 along the way and I spent most of my time on that platform anyway. I can't really see myself buying a machine where I can't add the storage I want or the OS I want. The laptop I have now shipped with a PCIE gen 3 even though it supported gen 4, I upgraded to a 2TB gen 4 nvme drive and reinstalled windows on it with no problems. I could have just as easily installed a Linux distro too. Macs do not allow for this, you order the storage you think you need at time of purchase and.....thats it.

[@bracholi]

I for one would favor a combined approach. As far as how the system currently works, I would suggest that part isn't broken, and should definitely not be changed. There should simply be included slots for swappable storage in addition to the NAND chips.

[@R2DHue]

If Apple users were allowed to lower security protections with full knowledge of the risks involved in order to permit an internal upgrade, some newsworthy hacking incident would invariably occur, but the press wouldn’t explain it that way, and they’d make sure the bad PR reflected on Apple itself. The reputation of the corporation and its products would be damaged rather than the deliberate “unsecurity” made with the user’s full knowledge and consent. It’s just like when someone uses a cheap (Chinese) non-MiFi iPhone charger that starts a fire. Headlines always seem to read like, “Apple iPhone Explodes! Family Homeless After House Fire!”

[@ferasalloush]

Totally agree it’s just the media wanting to get money of the stories and politicians making stuff up just to get polls, and people are believing unfortunately

[@Piipperi800]

A fascinating in-depth look into why the SSD can't be upgraded. However, it doesn't really address why SSD upgrades on Mac Pro 7,1 are completely fine to do. Or maybe it's just proof that Apple can do it when they want to? Also, to my understanding, once the drive fails on a T2/AS Mac, they cannot boot any more. Like, they'll just die completely with no way to even use an external SSD for the OS on them. Thanks Apple. Another question is what's the difference between bridgeOS and sepOS? According to Wikipedia, bridgeOS handles encrypted data on the Secure Enclave, does this mean Macs actually have 3 hidden operating systems running on them? And what about T1 Macs? Do they have the Secure Enclave or sepOS? They do run bridgeOS as well.

[@MartinMenge]

a whole library of darwin distros

[@dmug]

The Mac Pro 2019 (I have one) you have to reduce to reduce the security settings to boot off the SSDs and leave the original SSDs installed and as you mentioned, when the SSD fails it cannot boot.

[@Piipperi800]

@@dmug no, I mean the SSD kits that Apple directly sells at their online store. Looking at the product description, it seems to require another Mac with Apple Configurator 2, likely for a DFU restore or something else to initialize the new modules

[@dmug]

@@Piipperi800 Ah, interesting. Fascinating that the Mac Studio we haven't seen a similar situation.

[@trinhvanquan8443]

Basically the solution Apple had been made is the weirdest one to prevent user replace their SSD or some other parts of macbook line up. Here is question. Why does NAND or controller should care about data is encrypted or not. No matter that data is encrypted or not, they are all bundle of 0 and 1

[@sundhaug92]

IIRC there are two talks on sepOS and the Apple security architecture (I believe one was an Apple engineer at Black Hat). There's also the Apple security white-papers, which are very thorough.

[@mactalk2871]

How exactly would an attacker get any information about the key? The key is never leaving the SE, so even if you look at the data on the NAND modules, its random bytes, as far as I can tell, and assuming Apple uses something similar to AES 256, you shouldnt be able to get any information about the key by looking at the encrypted data, you wouldnt even be able to tell if the key was swapped or not.

[@f.remplakowski]

I held out buying a Retina MacBook Pro as I thought Apple would eventually move to a standards-based NVME connector (at the time SSD's could not offer the storage I needed). They released the TouchBar Macs and on the second-gen version I bought into it and was the worst MacBook since the first-gen Intel model that overheated and broke all the time, this one just randomly broke, the battery is quite difficult to self service, keyboard sucked and that damn SSD is not user upgradable. I tried Apple's way but it just got in my way so I decided to switch back to a PC. MacOS is my preference so it wasn't something I wanted to do but Apple has gone too far in their desire for money from upgrades all under the guise of security. What a shame as Apple Silicon is impressive but at what cost to the flexibility that customers should have, not to mention the mountain of e-waste created by releasing fixed computers with such minimal specs.

[@hhkk6155]

Totally agree 👍 thats why I like hackintosh, but the new AI backdoor is steering me from Macos whatsoever 😢 gonna use Linux

[@dmug]

I feel your pain, I used a MacBook Pro 2017 for my job until the M1 Pro. The 2017's thermals were so bad towards the end, I actually stuck it in a freezer for about 5 minutes as I desperately needed to push a fix but it was lagging out horribly and was in leaf blower mode. Ive's quest for the thinnest MacBook Pro was completely off the rails with the TDP of the Intel chips of that era. It was a stroke of genius to make the M1 Pro/Max thicker.

[@EXPERTISE]

Great and very informative video. I have seen a few times the NAND chip being replaced so it is possible, but extremely difficult as it needs to be removed, re-balled, and re-soldered.Also I imagine you should be able to just swap the logic board with a higher NAND storage chip as a way of upgrading the ssd, but I'm sure you would probably have to get around the hardware lock. I agree with the sentiment that there should at least be an empty secondary slot for an unencrypted, user-added NVme as like you said NAND chips have a finite life span, and especially so with the amount of swap used on the lower end Macs. We'll most likely have to wait for Tim Cook to leave Apple to maybe see user upgrades make a come back.

[@dmug]

Yep I keep seeing this comment, and I may need to make a follow up video, there’s very little info out there and as a non Chinese speaker, limited to what makes it English. The Chinese social media post is the most source but I think I may have found more info.

[@broccoli322]

The idea of not being able to use the Mac when the SSD is dead makes me uneasy, even if we know it's highly unlikely. In addition, the SSD upgrade price from Apple is getting ridiculous. I believe this factor also contributes to the recent 40% decrease in Mac shipments, besides small incremental performance improvements and bad economy.

[@Schykle]

Great ~6 minutes! Very informative.

[@randolphvanhook5829]

Like welding, soldering is one of those skills that if you can do it, all things become possible.

[@Dave102693]

Not with the chip within the M-series chip checking validity.

[@mortenthorpe]

Sun Microsystems, when they were present in the market for hardware and computers - did very much the same - each component - cpu, ram-stick, harddiak etc, probably a part of any IO handling of data - had a unique ID, and could not be uses in any other sun computer, as the collective ids had their IDs baked into the essential PROM-chip of the computer - in fixed firmware

[@mehere8-32]

Thats probably why they never went anywhere. If you can't play with them what's the point?

[@Dave102693]

@@mehere8-32 you can if you make money on smartphones and amped up mp3 players!

[@mstrsrvr]

You say 'the hardware encryption keys are derived from a combination of the SEP Id and the characteristics of NAND'. What do you mean by 'characteristics'? Can I assume that it is some kind of unique 'signature' of a NAND, and if am I right, there's no possibility for us to have 2 of them with the same signature?

[@dmug]

I think that was worded great. Pretty sure I dive into the keys more in my follow up. kzbin.info/www/bejne/qJTHhWeHiaeibdE If that doesn't make it clearer, I'd have to dive into my notes which won't be for a bit.

[@twitchyarby]

The SSDs are not upgradable because Apple wants you to buy a new device instead of upgrading an existing device. There is no technical reason they couldn't support upgrades - security and even the controller being in the processor are just smokescreens reasons to not allow upgrades.

[@Soham_2077]

Is this similar to the encrypted Knox Security present in specific premium Samsung devices?

[@prem3548]

The security is amazing for sure, but the price is just too high to pay. For most end users, this is not worth it. Its only for professionals who use their Macs for work I can see being ok with paying this much for security because well they can actually afford it. A simple solution should be having an additional M.2 slot that user can use. Right now its annoying trying to use external SSDs for extra storage.

[@Iumey]

1:15 afaik from macOS development, it’s actually not called sepOS, but rather bridgeOS it’s a fork of watchOS designed for the T2 and will also perform operations for the touch bar, if you have one

[@dmug]

Ah damn, you're right, I spent all my focus on the Apple Silicon Macs and not the T2s (hence why I barely mention them)

[@crashbandicoot4everr]

The T2 chip is mostly a rebranded A10 Fusion chip used in the iPhone 7. They even share the same part number (T8010).

[@gdp3rd]

Among the reasons I'm still using a Mid-2010 Mac Pro and MacBook Pro; I cannot use newer versions of a lot of software, but continue to be productive and maintain my own hardware. I have always done my own memory and storage upgrades.

[@dmug]

If I hadn’t had the resources to get the Macs I have, probably pick up a Mac mini m1 or m2 refurb and use it modern software and my Mac Pro for storage and legacy apps. The apple silicon macs are just so fast. The m1 air I had ram circles around my Mac Pro 5,1. It’s a shame they haven’t given us the ability to upgrade Apple Silicon as it is a game changer that a fanless laptop can best even desktops from a few years ago.

[@gdp3rd]

@@dmug, that is my plan for sometime in the next year or so.

[@MartyDidier]

This sounds like when buying a new Apple device, it’s important to buy it with the amount of memory desired. Whatever you end up with can’t have it’s memory increased or changed out. There may be 3rd part SSD’s available but they won’t have Apple’s proprietary security system. So the decision is to decide how much memory might be required for the life of the system. So what is it’s life - 10 years? What is the reason for this special multi-secure SSD memory design? Maybe this is where the owner Identity Security Code resides and can’t be accessed from the Counsel keyboard. It may have to be removed and placed in a special Apple system to access the internal code. Plus, it makes sense that the lesser known Backdoor(s) giving access to Government/Intelligence groups code resides. Accessing into a device comes in through a modified Bluetooth Port and enables the hacker to run outside of the system iOS. All Setup settings don’t mean anything. So the Backdoor control code would gave to be untouchable. Marty Didier

[@kaede15]

had to purchased an external 40gb tb enclosure and paired it the biggest nvme that I can afford in order to extend my mbp m1 and it's pathetic 512gb ssd life.... at least I chose to upgrade it to 32gb which lessen the ssd writes. How long will it last? no idea figers crossed tho.

[@arranmc182]

Yet Dosdude1 upgraded an SSD on a Apple Silicon Mac Studio upgrading it well past stock config, he noted you need 100% blank chips you cant use already preprogramed chips of it will not work, looks like once the chips are programmed they can only be used on the original mac that programmed them

[@VPWedding]

If an internal SSD fails, can you boot an M1 mac from an external SSD? I did this with my intel iMac when its internal platter died, and it worked well for a long time.

[@TheLobotomist-t1]

this is a great question, and i'm curious if anyone else knows the answer

[@ernstoud]

This conjecture at around 6:05… how can someone deduce anything from differences between two encryption keys? That is not the case. I give you two encrypted SSD’s, encrypted with different keys. No way you would be able to get any info from comparing those. Finding a key from encrypted data, if you have even two identical plaintexts encrypted with different keys you will not be able to find the keys. If I encrypt the first amendment using the same algorithm with different keys an I give you the two encrypted texts, you will not be able to find the keys. If I give you one key, you will not be able to find the second key. And BTW: the keys are stored in the Enclave. You cannot get them out.

[@dmug]

Its the only reason that I've seen given which struck me as exceptionally unlikely but the only justification for locking NAND swaps, and it was for nation-state actors

[@slizgi86]

As a security it is great, forcing and locking user base from repair and upgrade is a middle finger. They could if they want to make it possible to be work with some AppleID verification/confirmation or something. Without it, they basically create a ton of locked yet totally working and usable devices that end up as an e-waste - they are so environment friendly. As long as it stays that way, I will never consider buying their product, even if the damn iPad Pro M2 is so tempting.

[@dmug]

With the iPad and its form factor, I’m willing to accept that not having user upgrades for the SSD is a reasonable compromise but it’d be sure nice if it was at least more serviceable.

[@rayoflight62]

All the new Intel processors, at the boot, operate as a self contained computer, with the cache memory acting as RAM for said computer. During the boot, the micro-computer in the Intel processor load a (Linux-based) minimal OS, initialise the secure boot and the encryption keys, do the inventory and test of the peripherals, and other minor tasks. After all of this is completed, it handle itself to the boot manager (once called BIOS) and the sequence of initialisation continue. I believe, beside Apple and Intel, all modern microprocessors operate on a self-contained OS at boot and during some diagnostics...

[@markconger8049]

So can an Apple Silicon Mac not be booted from USB-C storage? If it can then perhaps this is the workaround for when these Macs fail due to reaching end of writes on internal storage.

[@dmug]

It can, just have to reduce the security settings in the recovery mode. If the internal SSD dies, though you cannot boot

[@johnadams6249]

I didn’t see any comments about it, but at the 2:00 mark you have some egregious accessibility violations with that black text on dark grey background fyi.

[@dmug]

Ha, I know. I meant to simulate the illegibility of the lithography found on chips and it's entirely unimportant to the video and didn't want anyone to really focus on it. It's entire "made up" as it's not truly representative of the secure enclave.

[@QnjtGWonQNqVsbYyzjx4]

How about the system disallow any security related data and communication on your upgraded SSD. These data have to be stored apple’s but other not-important data such as programs and non-sensitive program data can be stored.

[@oventree]

the secure enclave is really an amazing piece of hardware (at least in my opinion) and i really wish we had the ability to control the authorized keys on it like with google's titan m. but i don't think that'll ever happen

[@igorgiuseppe1862]

do you know about asahi linux, the linux distro that wants to fully suport m1 soc? (and in the future m2 and so on) im curious on how it deal with this security chip

[@pidojaspdpaidipashdisao572]

Security is possible to implement without this. This is something we would call "over engineering".

[@Steampunk_Star_Raisin]

This sounds like Apple's own version of TMP. I have also found that on WIndows PCs using NVMe SSD that has secure boot enabled can't be swapped into another PC. I have found that one could NVMe as long it is erased on the host machine. At least on PCs there are work arounds but with Apple the only way is to take a service center to have a machine software reset. This software is not publicly available sadly...

[@dmug]

Its more aggressive than the Windows implementation as you can upgrade the SSDs in the Windows boxes that use it whereas Apple will only let the Mac Studio swap NANDs and not even upgrade them.

[@NunamedDragon]

Secure boot and tmp doesn't stop you from moving the ssd into another machine. Bitlocker stops it from being able boot but that's easy to defeat.

[@Steampunk_Star_Raisin]

@@NunamedDragon When I tried to transfer an NVMe SSD to another it stopped the machine from booting at all. I had to format the drive in the original motherboard to get it to boot in another machine...

[@NunamedDragon]

@Steampunk Starraisin bios disable secure boot in new machine. Also check sata operations and switch it to the other mode. (Tricks for next time)

[@Steampunk_Star_Raisin]

@@NunamedDragon thanks

[@tristanpau1p]

Idk, I'm still spooked about the old High Sierra bug and maybe someone can do a remote access with no intervention and do something like that. IMO, a more refined idea on your separate SSD idea is to let it be seen as some form of connected storage and even disabling various security measures, it won't be seen as a primary storage.

[@calvinatdrifterstudio8438]

The nand time bomb has a 10 year fuse on it and I think my touch bar or my keyboard are more likely going to fail first

[@dmug]

Probably… I had a 2017 MacBook Pro and the Touch Bar was rough. I had three weeks where it stopped working and then magically, started working again.

[@chrisdavidson911]

If you wrote 50GB every day, all year, you'd get to a 150TBW point in 8.2 years, and at that point the TBW warranty period for some drives would expire but not mean the drive has failed or is failing. To believe that is like saying a car is guaranteed to have complete mechanical failure on the day the warranty runs out. A 250GB Samsung 850pro (rated for 150TBW) was tested until failure, the test took 3 years and achieved 9.1PB written. At 50GB per day, this would have taken 182,000 days, or just over 498 years. Other drives were tested and failed earlier, but still got beyond double the warranty period, which would have given 16.4 years of lifespan. Lack of plug & play style upgrading can be a point of umbrage but lifespan shouldn't be, things have changed over the last 25 years.

[@transitengineer]

This is outstanding and useful information to know. I have been saying for many years, once you buy an Apple computer with a T-2 security chip inside from that point forward the company owns you. Also, Apple generates tons of E-waste for recycle computer services by having security locks on so many of their systems. These older computers could easily be resold to others but, that is just what Apple, Inc. does not want to happen (smile...smile).

[@dmug]

I made a follow up, they’re upgradeable but…. Only kinda kzbin.info/www/bejne/qJTHhWeHiaeibdE

[@harveyweizman]

You are mistaken about one point. what one can do (albeit not officially supported); which has already been done, is replace the nand chips, which requires the cloning of the nand info, to larger capacity nand chips. Everything else about Apple is spot on.

[@dmug]

Thanks for the correction, by chance do you have any info on this? It’s incredibly hard to find. I’ve found a forum post by someone claiming to have done it on macrumors but they didn’t provide any information. Most of the information out there is about the Mac Studio. I’ve tried googling, bing chat and so on.

[@CheckTesting1]

Love the video 👊🏾 & it takes a lot to impress me ☺️ Keep up the good work, have a blessed day 🙏🏾

[@yuryzhuravlev2312]

this is very strange, how LInux works in that case on M1/M2?

[@samgray49]

So the secure enclave sounds like a lazy way of doing a TPM. That said, it is pretty dumb not to have the Enclave Keys on a TPM chip or at the very least have something like 20mb of flash that is dedicated to it.

[@X7cF4]

In mfr, they might hardwire PWR lanes to the dev_id but what if you measure the current draw and figureout out something about it, or maybe they connect dead bits to gnd

[@artraft5142]

More videos to explin what is the best usage of the big Memory Upgrades in the RAM of the new Macs and why the new programs nee those big Memory slots!

[@DougPeters]

Dude, your audio is so quiet that I can't hear what you are saying with my 2011 iMac. I'll try with my 2023 MBP later, but right now I am on this system because I need to use intel coded programs that won't run on Apple silicon without installing the Rosetta emulation layer (which I will not do because it will slow down my system).

[@dmug]

I appreciate the feedback. Something happens with KZbin uploads as I noticed that it was quieter yet again even though it hits 0 dB. I listened on my M1 Max ‘s internal speakers and it seemed reasonable, better than previous uploads. I might need to use something else as an upload check.

[@nickdixon3536]

very informative. thanks for sharing this

[@peterdecroos1654]

this makes me more likely to pickup a framework laptop for my next daily driver. apple needs to humble themselves and realize that once we buy the device, ITS OURS

[@dmug]

If I weren't tied to macOS, I'd probably be eye-balling them, their latest is really impressive.

[@Dave102693]

I was thinking about that too, considering Windows is gonna release win 12 soon and u might have to upgrade my win 10 laptop to win 11 when it happens.

[@sssloe]

Nand upgrades are a thing even on fresh devices. The only troublesome thing is sourcing out the chips, but nand upgrades are a thing for years now.

[@dmug]

I keep seeing this comment but haven’t seen any evidence than one blog post on Chinese social media. I’m super interested as I had to make this video without the confidence I’d like. If you have info, pleas share, I’d appreciate it

[@sssloe]

@@dmug So, the currently sold devices come with BGA110 nand and BGA315 nand, BGA315 being introduced last year and 110 introduced about 5 years ago. It's a unified chip architecture that provides storage options across their devices, the only difference being the underlying layer of the device specific nand data that gets written down on a firmware level and that differentiates chips. In the A13 release year and earlier, nand data was copied over using jcidtech/wl8888 nand programmers to the new chips for storage upgrades, ever since the A14 direct upgrades are possible without copying over the nand data provided the chips are sourced out form appropriate devices. The M1 devices and M2 devices (and M1 pro/max/etc) are similar in a sense that despite there are individual chip identifiers in place, if the system detects appropriate chip (or chips) in place with the correct underlying nand data present, devices will boot with it so for years now storage upgrades are a thing, especially in Shenzhen markets where you can get it done as a third party service or you can buy chips yourself if you're into DIY (like myself). For someone confident in their BGA soldering work, 2tb chips cost about $200 bucks in reballed condition give or take, mind you overseas ordering will always have $60-80 bucks bigger of a price compared to what you can haggle out in Shenzhen. I paid $240 for mine last year when they were more expensive. I kinda lost my chain of thoughts so if you have specific questions I'd gladly reply. Willing to reply about M1/M2 ram upgrades as well.

[@dmug]

@@sssloe Thanks for this

[@hastingb]

Isn't it ironic that we still have old iPods lying around that will outlast baseline MacBook Airs?

[@Dave102693]

Ikr?

[@Gome.o]

Coming away from the latest apple event, I can't help but feel that this whole Apple Intelligence and Private Cloud compute could only be made possible by this architecture

[@davidgrisez]

Since components in a computer wear out, It is an unacceptable practice by Apple Company that the solid state storage on their Apple Silicon computers can not be replaced. This is ridiculous. This means that once the solid state storage fails the computer must be replaced, because there is no way to repair it by replacing the solid state storage. Now I know that on my Apple Mac Studio Computer that once the solid state storage fails and the computer is out of warranty that will be the end of this computer.

[@samanthagriffinv2.08]

I heard you can upgrade the ssd but it has to be the same manufacturer as the original and with in the same model but you can get a higher capacity but idk how true that is cuz I don’t own any macs

[@rat_world]

Great video! Just found this channel

[@dmug]

Thanks, I try and throw up a mix of Mac geekiery, How-Tos and the random editorial or review.

[@mikeypalmer3977]

Excellent video. Thank you.

[@dmug]

Thanks!

[@michaelkhalsa]

Intel/AMD chips have had enclaves for many years with their own mini operating systems, and OS to take advantageous of it. While there may be a very few who would benefit from the additional protections apple added (and those people would also have many other protections such as not connecting devices directly to the internet), I suspect that it was done 'Primarily' to prevent people from upgrading the SSD's themselves, including placing the controller on the silicon, to protect their outrageous pricing charged for upgrades. It is to protect their business model, not security.

[@martinpetersen3187]

Question: Why not attach an external M.2 NVMe drive via Thunderbold 4 to your Mac and use it as your Startup disk? Any issues with that due to this secret OS?

[@dmug]

You can. With the Mac Pro 2019 (Has T2 chipset so similar) and boot off an internal NVMe, issue for many is the laptop form factor isn't ideal nor is Thunderbolt 4 as fast as the internal PCIe even with NVMe, you're looking at a maximum speed of roughly 2800 MB/s real world vs PCIe 4.0 speeds found on the Pro/Max and upper tier storage options on the M2. If the internal drive dies though, your Mac is no longer bootable as the boot rom requires the UEFI partition which it'll only allow on the internal Storage.

[@TheLobotomist-t1]

@@dmug Are you referring to the EFI partition? because people have been putting EFI folders on os x install thumbdrives for a long time now, at least in the hackintosh community

[@dmug]

@@TheLobotomist-t1 the t2 macs if you remove the NAND SSD are unbootable: see the Mac Pro 2019, iMac Pro and now with apple silicon Mac Studio. You can’t have the uefi and recovery partition on an external or non-Apple SSD.

[@marlenmarko77]

there's also a mobile operating system called bridgeOS for apple's T2 chips for the intel-based MacBook Pro's

[@dmug]

Yeah, I kinda ignored the t2’s bridgeOS for the touchbars and video codecs. I have a follow up and it’ll mention bridgeOS and recoveryOS

[@marlenmarko77]

@@dmug i have question is the Secure enclave chip and its software is blocking a non-apple repairs from replacing an old damaged Original apple-made hardware part with the same new original apple-made hardware genuine parts ?

[@dmug]

@@marlenmarko77 I didn't do a great job on explaining that the SSDs can be replaced by Apple which is part of the next video.

[@hishnash]

With respect to repair you can absilyt replace the NAND, for soldered NAND you will need to find a board level repair shop but raw NAND is cheap so that total cost of replacement is not that much.

[@dmug]

I keep seeing comments like this and I’m curious if anyone has any evidence of this other than that one social media post that happened in China. An engineer managed to replace the ram and NANDs.

[@hishnash]

@@dmug The DFU firmware flash fully resets the entier firmware. (and resets the SSD controler) The engineers behind the linux on apple silicon project talked about this and based on that they know (outside of apple they know the most) they belive swapping NAND as long as you use a configuration the firmware supports will not be an issue. They also predicted before anyone attempted to `upgrade` the modules of th M1 Studio that it would not work as they already had looked at the firmware bundle and seen that the configurations of the different capacities that are supported by the controler are different. And the firmware does not support 1TB based of 2 NAND packages, etc. Given they have said there is no issue with upgrading NAND (or RAM) (note finding the correct NAND packages is not easy as apple has a dedicated PCIe chip that the NAND chip is stocked ontop-of and very few places can seperate those). The NAND models on the studio talk to the SOC over a sub-layer of PCIe but the controler is on the SOC. The challenge is apple does not provide any public list of what will work, and the modules themselves do not even have useful markings. What I expect we will see at some point when the `self repair` program is updated to include the studio is `SSD replacement kits`. Just one note you mentioned someone being able to cracke the root cryptogram key.. that is no possible at all. Firstly the key is only part of the source data, the other part is the users PW + random data stream. These will be hashed together so that even if you had the cryptic keys for the SSDs and did this 1 billion times you would have no way of knowing the root key of the chip. This is the fundamentals of asymmetric crypto.

[@inwerp]

Well, upgrading SSDs is not that difficult in terms of soldering, also much easier than on T2 devices. It is nothing more but pcie drives stacked in sort of raid array. As for extra connectivity, providing extra m.2 slot would mean to support extra layer of compatibility which is definitely not the "apple" way of handling things. Embedded SSD/RAM is unfortunately became standard and basically the same design decision here: to support different RAM sticks with spd profiles you need to design the board quite differently. All last replaceable RAM macs had issues with side slot which was being ripped from board on 2011-2012 macbooks often enough to name it typical issue.

[@sierraguru6942]

They aren't real SSDs. The memory chips from the SSD are individually soldered to the motherboard. The OS manages data storage and retrieval on the chips.

[@inwerp]

These are SIP SSDs. NAND controller and pcie interface is integrated into the package, so technically this is PCIE SSD drive, just with a very tiny or no cache since T2 / M1 dedicates its memory for that.

[@ronscheinhaus2503]

The theory that NAND has a finite lifespan has been mentioned before due to a finite number of writes that its capable of. Its also true that a 256gb/ 8 gb RAM system is going to swap a lot, but I wonder in practical terms how much of a problem this is going to be. How likely is it that the NAND is going to run out of writes even on a minimal system before Apple obsoletes the machine ? One way to avoid this problem is that Apple now offers Applecare that can be renewed annually presumably for as long as that model is supported. If the NAND stops working, one way or another Apple has to replace it.

[@dmug]

I do wish I’d said that apple would probably stop supporting the machines before this was a huge issue although I’m sure some will die before then, but not enough to catch a lot of attention.

[@gravitymediapro]

Jules from Pulp Fiction, “SAY SECURE ENCLAVE AGAIN - I DARE YOU!” Just having a little fun. Very interesting video, thank you! New sub.

[@gipfreely]

LOL, I read your thumbnail as sepsis

[@andreasrichman5628]

Why in hackintosh we can upgrade the ssd?

[@stubaccount]

this guy: It's not just marketing reality:it's just marketing

[@dmug]

I mean sure, marketing, but it’s also the DRM that locks people out of repairs or upgrades…

[@stubaccount]

@@dmug true, brother

[@fuefme9332]

This explains why the switched the macs from Intel/AMD processors to the Silicon (M series) to prevent offline software downgrades. On iphones if you don't update the ios, the phone will disable or bootloop forcing you to update and erase it through itunes.

[@ST-ry7lr]

Very good video. Sadly, right to repair only forces the OEM to provide 3rd parties access to parts to repair their equipment. Apple reluctantly "agreed" to support RTR a few years ago, while actively engineering all of their new systems to be completely SOC, with no removable or replaceable components. Even Apple cannot repair them, they can only offer replacement if you pay for expensive Apple Care. There is nothing magical about Apple's unified system architecture. The only reason it can't be upgraded or repaired is because Apple spent millions in engineering to prevent it.

[@dmug]

My hope is mostly with the EU at least mandating better right to repair stuff. I appreciate Louis Rossman but his delivery is rough. My hope is just to spread the gospel it doesn’t have to be this way and others will do that too as I really love macOS and my M1 Max is such a good computer outside of serviceability. It was pretty egregious that they moved to this architecture in 2015 of bolting down the RAM and SSD even before they had an SOC. Users like me are married to macOS professionally but I could see a future where I have a Linux/Windows desktop instead of a Mac.

[@Dave102693]

@@dmug Windows is taking all of the bad ideas from Google and Apple now, and doing them worse, so I’ll dual boot if I was you, unless you’re gonna be ok with the forever-developers mode win 11/12 with iOS type system control and more shuffleware than ever before

[@Dave102693]

If their computers, pads and phones ever get iCloud locked or the batters/memory/ssd dies, they are just paperweights to be sent to Apple. What a shame.

[@SlowPCGaming1]

You weren't getting into the weeds. The fact that their PCs are running their own "micro" computing environment inside an existing micro computer architecture makes perfect sense in context with providing a lockdown on security matters. How hard would it be to clone the SEP itself? If the SEP is the source of the headache and protection that would be the first thing I'd have cloned. Then clone the DRAM flash memory chips if that is possible. Since the controller for the SSD resides in the SEP I'd skip using a short lived SSD in the first place. With an adapter you can plug in any SATA HDD to a M. whatever slot. Mounting an internal HDD could be a bit tricky or impossible on some of their small form factor cases & laptops. However cutting a small slot into the PC case enclosure does permit someone to mount their "internal" drive externally for those types of computers. Or skip all of that with an externally accessed HDD via USB 3.x or USB 4 / thunderbolt. Because Apple are total dicks about how they treat their customers I would never store original data on any SSD or HDD attached to an Apple PC.

[@sluge1]

Aslr is not related to any kind of encryption. On PC and windows world TPM is responsible for that

[@davidc4162]

Shelf life refers to how long something is usable while in storage i.e. not in use. Here, for with regards to NAND flash, lifespan would be a more accurate term.

[@dmug]

Fair enough, SSDs do require the occasional powering on every 2-5 years but that's likely not going to be an issue for Apple products.

[@davidwhatever9041]

I am typing this out on a 10 year old mac retina. ive wanted to upgrade for a while, but issues like welding ssd's to the mb, now serial locking even display open sensors! and this just put me off massively. i do like their products and will probably carry on using this laptop until it dies, but without some give from apple... just going to have to look elsewhere for the replacement..... not that they care about my custom than the repairability of their stuff.

[@diversityandcomicsbear2625]

Ok, so can the FEDs still access it?

[@dmug]

Who knows? It depends if there's zero-days being sold to nation/state actors by the elusive cyber-intelligence firms like NSO Group or Candiru. The most common vector though is to subpoena iCloud or various messaging services, wesites and so on as backups for iOS aren't encrypted there in a way Apple can't access and same for most web services providers. I'd hazard to guess though based on the public stand offs Apple has had regarding device unlocks, they're not giving anything to the Feds when it comes to individual devices so the more likely vector is to get the data they want from other sources or using exploits if they exist.

[@Swamy456]

Excellent and concise.

[@srcuso]

There is a sep hack for A10-A15 iPhones… And for A10 iPhones It is fully implemented in pongos. From iOS 12-ios16…

[@kozad86]

Apple's hardware is amazing, but there are equitable options over on the PC side which are consumer upgradable.

[@dmug]

I agree, mac users often have blinders on for PC innovation but I use Apple products for macOS. Windows isn’t bad, and I get accused of being a windows fanboy or Intel plant but I still prefer macOS.

[@Marty_YouTuber]

@@dmug i am subscribing to you, you are more reasonable then most apple users and your subscribers are more reasonable then most apple users. i honestly wish intel paid you to talk about all the problems with apple and their hardware and their company.

[@dmug]

@@Marty_KZbinr thanks, I like to think I’m not a fanboy of any company. When I was kid I certainly thought Macs were the best took it personal when someone disagreed but then I grew up. It’s fascinating how adults will argue with strangers about iOS vs Android like they’re on a playground. I don’t have time for that. There’s things I like about Linux and I don’t like about it, things I like about windows and things I don’t like about it and same with macOS. Just because I like macOS the best doesn’t make it the best for someone else. I really like macOS thus I’m more critical of it.

[@carpetedrestroom5218]

if they really cared about replacing ssd's, they would make them replacable. *but they don't.*