03-21-2025, 11:44 AM
Special,
Agreed. It sucks that you can't upgrade the internal drive and/or the RAM. Very annoying. That's why I spent the extra bucks to make sure the Mini M4 Pro I just bought for my office has 24GB of RAM and a 1TB internal SSD. We keep machines in operation for a very long time and the bucks spent on the Mini now ensures it'll do what we need it to do now and for many years in the future.
If the Mini had user upgradeable RAM and storage, I'd've opted for less RAM and storage and upgraded both myself. Unfortunately, Apple has removed this option so now we have to take an educated guess when ordering new machines, just like I did with my office's mini. Grrrr! Although I'm using the Mini with an external boot drive, I opted to order it with a 1TB internal drive as a precaution.
Apple has already made it so some OS features no longer work when a machine is booted off an external drive. Apple Intelligence immediately comes to mind. Since Apple has done that, at some point, Apple might remove the ability to use an external boot drive for its machines, too.
If that day comes, I don't want to have to deal with a crippled machine due to too little internal storage I know I can switch to a multi-drive configuration but that's a nuisance for backups and such in my experience. Much easier to just switch to the internal drive and make a "one and done" setup and go back to work. The 1TB drive ensures that's possible. I couldn't do that with a less spacious internal drive.
Robert
Agreed. It sucks that you can't upgrade the internal drive and/or the RAM. Very annoying. That's why I spent the extra bucks to make sure the Mini M4 Pro I just bought for my office has 24GB of RAM and a 1TB internal SSD. We keep machines in operation for a very long time and the bucks spent on the Mini now ensures it'll do what we need it to do now and for many years in the future.
If the Mini had user upgradeable RAM and storage, I'd've opted for less RAM and storage and upgraded both myself. Unfortunately, Apple has removed this option so now we have to take an educated guess when ordering new machines, just like I did with my office's mini. Grrrr! Although I'm using the Mini with an external boot drive, I opted to order it with a 1TB internal drive as a precaution.
Apple has already made it so some OS features no longer work when a machine is booted off an external drive. Apple Intelligence immediately comes to mind. Since Apple has done that, at some point, Apple might remove the ability to use an external boot drive for its machines, too.
If that day comes, I don't want to have to deal with a crippled machine due to too little internal storage I know I can switch to a multi-drive configuration but that's a nuisance for backups and such in my experience. Much easier to just switch to the internal drive and make a "one and done" setup and go back to work. The 1TB drive ensures that's possible. I couldn't do that with a less spacious internal drive.
Robert