Teardown specialist at iFixit took the new Mac Studio apart to check the layout of its internals, its repairability score, and answer question if users can upgrade. Over the past few days, other teardowns of the new desktop Mac have shown that the computer contains free storage slots but now iFixit has confirmed that users can repair it by themselves but they can not be upgraded.
Mac Studio does not accept SSD combinations other than factory fitted configuration
Happy with the single unit design and more ports, the iFixit expert was able to remove the power supply plate by unscrewing four screws under the foot ring. She was surprisingly pleased to see that Apple’s industrial design team had covered the entire power supply in black tape and color synchronized goop.
Next, she gained access to the internal storage after removing a frame, under the power supply and also found a spare slot which helped her to find out if the Mac Studio’s modular storage is upgradable.
She placed the removed stick from one Mac Studio into the empty slot of another Mac Studio but the Configurator kept showing DFU restore errors. She said that:
“No matter the configuration, we haven’t gotten two base model drivers to boot in a single machine. However when we swapped the spare Studio’s drive for the one in the teardown unit and used Configurator to do a DFU restore. It worked!”
Testing concluded that storage swaps are possible, between two drivers of the same size but are not upgradeable. And at the end, the teardown expert gave the new desktop Mac a 6 repairability score and expressed hope that a future update will make its storage upgradable.
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