M2 Mac Mini Teardown / Disassembly (4K - Up Close)

Teardown on the brand new Apple M2 Mac Mini. Base Model 8GB Ram 256GB SSD.
CORRECTION! To the right of the M2 is 2X SK Hynix H58G56AK6HX052 4 GB LPDDR5 SDRAM memory. There is only one single NAND chip for storage.

Tools required for disassembly:
TR6 Torx
T5 Torx
T9 Torx

[JohnEboyee]

Amazing how powerful computers have gotten with such a small footprint. Cool stuff!

[tobias_dahlberg]

Absolutely insane that such a powerful machine is that small.

[aravjain]

Wow! That machine is incredible and very compact for its power! And great video, I love the 4K quality and step-by-step teardown!

[LeicaM]

7:12 I think, those are the RAM modules, right?

[brandon]

CORRECTION! To the right of the M2 chip are 2X SK hynix H58G56AK6HX052 4 GB LPDDR5 SDRAM memory. There is only one SINGLE NAND chip for storage.

[daleharper]

Brandon Geekabit: if you get the 1TB drive, what is the NAND count?
If you get 16gb does it have 4 4gb scram chips or 2 8gb?
If you get 32 GB what is the chip configuration?

[DIDI]

Non-expandable ram - fine. But non-replaceable drive is not acceptable at all.

[imamfajar]

7:11 Actually that is RAM, not SSD
SSD is on the right top of it, something with like a glue around it

[peterv]

Thank you for showing us the teardown video. 7:11 what you pointed to is LPDDR5 SDRAM memory.

[yuan.pingchen]

This M2 Mac Mini spec just like my 15 inch MacBook Pro bought 11 years ago, 8G RAM and 256GB SSD, it's so nice..

[segiatera]

2:50 Just wanna make sure so they changed the screws holding the fan from Torx T6 on the M1 to Torx T5 on M2?

[FireMunki]

Why would they make it smaller? You need some weight and size to stop it tipping and for the air grille and inputs/outputs? I don’t get why it needs to be smaller or what benefit being smaller would be? The Mac mini is essentially as small as it needs to be. What would be the pro of it being smaller especially as the pro edition uses the same case. Can you please qualify your statement ?

[vishnuvardhanv]

thank you for doing the tear down of the mac mini.. Outstanding work

[CO_]

It looks like there is only 1 slot for the SSD?

[allanjunli]

Thank you for sharing. Basically, it’s not upgradable. Miss those 2012 design.

[peterpayne]

Super useful guide! I'm in the process of hollowing out a G4 Cube which will become the new home of my M2 Mac Mini, with a bunch of extras (extra USB SSD, backup SSD, etc.). I've been trying to analyze how the M2 and M2 Pro motherboards are different, which will make my mounting challenges different.

[augustya]

@Brandon Geekabit Are you sure even in the 2023 Mac Mini the 256 GB SSD has only one Nand Chip where as the 512 GB SSD has two ?

[JamiBolin]

This is a very nice tear down video! Thanks a bunch. I did notice you identified two chips on the board as Solid State "Drives", The two chips on the side of the M2 chip are the Dynamic RAM modules, not the solid state drives you mentioned. I believe The storage chip(s) has/have also been soldered on the board. The two chips mounted to the board near the I/O panel look suspiciously like 128GB solid state chips. Alternatively, Apple could have used a single 256GB chip, which the square chip to the top right could be. Also, another technical detail to note is the Hard Drive does not exist on the inside of the South Bridge, The DRAM and PCI-E are the only communicants at that point. Since PCI-Express is on the North of the South Bridge and South of the North Bridge, it is called Express. Since the DRAM is shared by the CPU and the GPU, the Graphics RAM and the Compute RAM are the same chips, The GPU is on the north bridge and the Unified Memory is the only thing between the North and South bridges.

[akus]

The 16gb version will be my first own mac ever, very nice to learn how it looks on the inside! Indeed there’s a lot of space inside, but I guess the current form factor isn’t an issue for most people

[maximilianschwab]

I thought the chips under the black strip at the right side of the processor were the RAM modules, while the SSDs are further right and a little above, with two suckets available for either 8 or 16 TB capacity.
Didn't I say that already? Your videos are great! I really like them! Thank you very much!