Oliver Haslam on April 7, 2021, 12:54 am

You Can Upgrade The RAM And SSD In M1 Macs After All, But You Won’t Want To

Apple’s latest M1-powered Macs are blazing-fast, but they do have one drawback – the RAM and SSD cannot be upgraded after purchase. They are both part of, and directly attached to, the M1 processor. But some technicians in China have managed to do it anyway.

As MacRumors reports, people first started talking about doing this on Chinese social media over the weekend but we’re now starting to learn more about the process. Ultimately, it is indeed possible.

But the amount of work required – the parts are soldered in place – makes it less than ideal. There is reportedly a high chance of failure, too.

Importantly, not only were the technicians able to do the upgrade but macOS Big Sur also correctly recognizes and uses the new hardware, too.

As proof, a large number of images showing the process of a base model ‌M1‌ MacBook Air with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage being upgraded to 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, and this change being correctly shown in macOS Big Sur, have been shared online.

The move undoubtedly breaks Apple’s warranty and again, actually having this done to a Mac isn’t something we’d recommend. That said, the fact it’s possible at all is interesting and it does suggest there’s more repairability here than we previously thought.