Upgrade Your M4 Mac mini SSD at Home with This Guide [VIDEO]

Apple’s new M4 Mac mini, which went on sale on Friday, is surprising fans with an unexpected feature: user-upgradable storage. That’s despite the Mac mini shrinking in size compared to before.

A video from the YouTube channel ‘dosdude1’ offers a step-by-step guide to upgrading the storage on the new Mac mini. This is a rare option for Apple devices, as past Mac mini models with Apple Silicon typically came with storage soldered directly to the logic board, making upgrades impossible.

In the video, ‘dosdude1’ unboxes and disassembles the M4 Mac mini, revealing that the storage is actually housed on removable NAND module PCBs, similar to Apple’s Mac Studio.

However, unlike the Mac Studio, the standard M4 Mac mini supports only two NAND chips, allowing for a maximum storage upgrade of 2TB. During the video, the YouTuber encountered some challenges, noting that he initially attempted to upgrade with 1TB NAND chips but had to use two 512GB chips instead, totalling 1TB due to supply issues.

The entire process costs around $90 US for the 512GB chips used, though a 1TB upgrade set could cost about $160 US. Despite these initial hurdles, ‘dosdude1’ successfully completed the upgrade within hours of receiving the device, describing the process as rewarding.

Now, of course, this DIY process is not for the faint of heart. But if you love to tinker and you have the tools, you could take this on if you want to upgrade your SSD and save some money, instead of paying Apple’s markup.

Check out the video below: