are there any Apple fans old enough to
remember when Mac Mini was originally
introduced so this is a very robust
computer but it's very very tiny
yeah matter of fact let me show you one
right now this is how tiny
it has been over 13 years since that
original unveiling and while it's clear
that Apple no longer focuses much on Mac
Mini if at all recommending that window
switchers just moved to an iMac instead
Mac Mini has both obtained and retained
a cult following from within the Apple
community for a few reasons
it's still the cheapest Mac in Apple's
lineup it makes for an excellent
inexpensive computer and home media
server and it actually finds quite a bit
of usage in enterprise and you should
definitely check my video out on the
matter if you haven't seen it but
hopefully that helps illustrate how is
static Mac Mini fans like my sub work to
see Apple upgrade this computer for the
first time in over four years
in a future video I'll test thermal
performance and benchmark this machine
against Apple's own lineup and the
general $800 PC market but in this video
I wanted to take Mac Mini apart to see
how friendly it is to use our
serviceability inside because previous
Mac minis well they happen one fun thing
I noticed during the unboxing is that if
you look inside the little manual
pamphlet they include you'll notice that
look at that that's an
interesting-looking display it looks
like an iMac but it's not an iMac and
the bezels are small could that be an
Apple Pro display that's coming out in
the future or did some Apple intern just
whip that up in Photoshop let me know
what you think in the comments below
alright so I haven't cracked this open
yet and neither has anyone else online
that I've seen so let's do this together
and immediately we're already at a
crossroads you see the prior Mac Mini
used to have a little dimple here and a
little dimple here and you can just
stick your fingers in them and then
twist the cover about 10 to 15 degrees
and then you could lift it right off
those are gone but the chassis seems
pretty much the same as the old one so
I'm betting they just got rid of the
dimples and if you use a little bit of
friction force you can top that lid
right off I think no that is not budging
at all
now if you can hear this
I don't you to get in here but there's a
little clicking in there which is good
because that makes me think they didn't
glue it in there I don't think it's
adhesive so we are going to snack our
iFixit protec toolkit this video is not
sponsored by them so don't buy this
just kidding it's an excellent kit and I
use it all the time I'll leave a link in
the description if you are interested
but I'm going to snag one of these
little blue spud Jers which are plastic
and very soft and I'm going to see if I
can kind of pry into the cover and do it
gently oh that's good news that's good
news
that was a snap and there's another snap
so I was right this thing basically just
comes right off it's held in by three
little plastic retention clips that
attach to the three security screws yep
those are security screws so there are
Torx screws right here but they're
actually security screws so they have a
little pin in the middle and you have to
have the right driver but unfortunately
for Apple I've got it alright so we've
got all of the screws undone but I don't
want to rip this piece off because this
black piece right here is the Wi-Fi and
bluetooth module and so if we just rip
this back cover off we're probably gonna
break a ribbon cable so let's see we're
under here yep there's a cable and look
at that it's just a little antenna cable
attached right there I'm just gonna pry
that up and undo the screw just the same
size that's nice and there we go so that
back cover comes straight off okay so
we've got some good news and bad news
the good news is that this computer is
actually really pretty simple air gets
sucked in through the bottom of the case
into this blower style cooler so this
fan sucks air in and then blows it
through this radiator right here which
is presumably aluminum you can see we've
got some copper heat pipes right there
that are going underneath the CPU which
looks like it's about right here right
beneath the ram the ram kind of oddly
and surprisingly is covered by this
aluminum shield and that other than that
we have the power supply which is over
here and it looks like it's on a board
in
pendant to the main motherboard which is
nice if that goes bad you can swap that
out and then there's a speaker
underneath here because yes the Mac Mini
has a speaker I don't know why it sounds
horrible the bad news is we'll find out
in a minute that the cpu doesn't look
socketed and the RAM while it does look
like it can be removed and we'll find
out in a minute it's not immediately
user accessible you basically have to
tear apart the whole entire computer to
get there so we'll see how long it takes
to pull off the main fan that's
obviously the first step we've got for
fan or for screws one here one here one
here and one here
okay so unless this fan is like the be a
fence that used to be a Mac Pro and
assuming it is attached with a cable so
lift up gently and yep there it is it's
a cable right there which actually
awesome looks surface mounted so you
just pull straight up and it pops right
out and this fan actually looks to be
really really good quality it's metal
construction which is nice and look at
that huge gold bearing right there okay
so the fans out of the way but
unfortunately we cannot access the RAM
yet because it's still blocked over here
in the corner so it's immediately
noticeable that while it looks like you
can replace the RAM Apple really doesn't
want you to and so what we're going to
have to do to access the RAM and the CPU
is actually remove the motherboard from
the case now you might be wondering how
do you get this huge square motherboard
out of this little circle hole and well
you don't it's the short of it there are
two massive screws right here which I am
guessing holds the motherboard into holy
smokes
those are tight into the top of the case
these are Torx t10 screws we've got one
we've got two and if my suspicions are
correct those are the only two so the
motherboard should be pretty loose and
yep look at that
so the motherboard is is loose now the
question is how do we actually get it
out of here well you can tell that the
back of the Mac Mini is plastic and
that's because there are actually a
bunch of plastic retention clips that
hold the motherboard in and the
motherboard can actually slide out now
you're also wondering well how in the
heck do I undo those pretension clips
because the gaps in here are so tight
well there are two things we need to do
first one is that as far as I can
yep there are only two ribbon cables
while they're not even ribbon cables
there's one surface-mounted cable right
here and then there's the power supply
cable we need to detach these before we
try and rip the motherboard out
otherwise we can cause damage to the
cables this one comes up very very
easily I mean just pull up on it we
could actually probably even do it with
our fingers and yep and then we've got
our power cable right here but we can't
really remove it gracefully yet because
the top of the case right here is in the
way so that's alright
there used to be a special tool to
remove the Mac Mini motherboard from the
case it was like a little metal hanger
that would sit on the two sides and pry
it out you'd actually see a hole right
here and that hole we need to access so
that we can kind of push the motherboard
forward and undo the clips however I
don't see another hole on the other side
which is a little worrying but I'm just
gonna try and pry this one first and
literally all you do is you just
basically put your screwdriver in the
hole and then push it out and you can
see that actually Jia did the front
jotted the motherboard out of the way
and jumped the plastic out right here so
now there's a gap in the plastic the
mother was slightly askew and we're done
over here unfortunately I do not see
that same hole on the other side so what
I'm gonna do is probably not kosher oh
there we go that's gonna say I'm gonna
push straight on the cooling assembly
and there you go it kind of just slides
out in front of it now again we do need
to be careful that power cable is still
attached let's drag it back a little bit
and then pull that cable up but now
assuming carefully just to make sure yep
everything slides up so
there you go easy as that now that the
main logic board is out all that's left
is the power supply I want to show you
how to remove this because while it
probably isn't going to happen it's
possible that that you may have to
replace this in the future and it should
be relatively easy there's only one two
and yep there's a third screw right
there
this one is a pretty small hole so we're
gonna have to get a screw driver that
can fit down in there luckily the iFixit
one does and there we go and this should
just slide up or not okay so this is
interesting the little power connector
we have to pull off the little silver
bracket that goes around it and then if
you can see there there's a little tiny
basically retention clip if you slide
that clip out with a screwdriver you
should be able to just twist that power
connector and yep there we go so the
cool thing about this is that it's
actually a sealed off self-contained
unit so it's very very safe obviously
you don't want to go jamming your
fingers down inside there but as opposed
to the iMac where the PSU is totally
exposed and quite dangerous this is all
sealed off and self-contained so that's
really nice to see good job Apple okay
and now to the good stuff I know you're
excited about the RAM so we've got four
screws right here holding this panel in
place and that is a very small screw
head I'm guessing Torx four maybe yes
okay now this weird shield should just
slide off diagonally and that it does I
honestly don't know why this is there
and what it is for
I guess it's to protect the RAM when
you're sliding the motherboard in and
out of the case I don't know but cool
and you've got a little rubber gasket on
the side that you have to remove - oh
actually no that is strange
holy weirdness okay so that is not only
a little rubber sleeve but that's
actually the RAM retention clips so as
soon as you pull those the RAM releases
that is an odd design and the dims
yep just as expected come out super easy
so there you go this base configuration
has two sticks of four gigabyte ddr4 so
yeah you can replace your own Ram
although I'm not going to give Apple
kudos I am glad that they kept using
sodium's rather than soldered memory it
is repairable it is upgradable but at
the same time it feels like they
purposely made it difficult to do I mean
that is not easy it's not hard if you're
familiar with computers you can probably
do it in half an hour but at the same
time it's clearly designed to discourage
users from trying to upgrade their own
Ram unlike Mac minis of years past the
speaker again comes out very easily with
a little surface mounted connector I
don't know why there's a speaker there
is truly no need it sounds awful but
there is a speaker in Mac Mini and then
let's remove this cooling assembly which
I'm guessing we have to remove these
four screws holding the CPU radiator
into this little bracket on the front
panel and then we're of course going to
need to remove the four screws that are
tension screws on the diet itself so
let's do that we are going to in theory
lift this nope we've got ah two more
screws holding this puppy on actually I
take that back we have four more two
here and then two under here hidden
underneath these little rubber pads I am
no you know engineer but that seems a
little excessive uh-huh yes it does so
that slides right out and there you go
Hey
look at that Apple actually used a
reasonable amount of thermal paste in
one of their computers for once that is
just about the right amount there's not
too much not too little
it is the weird thermal compound that
they use so it feels a little dried out
I'm assuming that thermals could be
improved by replacing it with your own
thermal paste but at the same time
you'll want to proceed at your own risk
so let me tell you about what's actually
on the board here the Mac Mini
logic board is pretty dense and really
cool obviously you've got your RAM slots
and you've obviously got your CPU and a
GPU over here as well over here you have
your PCH a platform controller hub if
you're familiar with the terms North
Bridge South Bridge it's basically the
modern version of that so this handles
the system clock it also handles the FDI
which is flexible display interfaces
what Intel uses for the integrated
graphics to connect with the actual IO
on the front of on the back of the
computer and so these two kind of work
in tandem you've got your system battery
over here which is obviously pretty
important to maintain settings and the
system time and stuff like that over
here you've got your Wi-Fi antennas and
you can see we've removed one earlier
remember that black little circle at the
bottom of the case at the very beginning
there's actually two other ones this one
goes to the left side of the back of the
i/o and this one goes to the right side
so Macs are very well known for having
very good Wi-Fi and that's part of the
reason why there are wires everywhere
other than that the only other
interesting things of note are these two
so right here we have our flash storage
so this is the base model has 128 gigs
so each of these is 32 gigs apiece so
there are four little modules if you get
the two terabyte model one of the
reasons they're so expensive is they
have to pack 512 gigs of density into
each little square so it's quite a bit
cheaper when you get 128 gigs obviously
and then under here this is the last
cool thing you've got your t2 chip which
handles boot security and it handles the
SSD which makes it so quick and that's a
staple I'm assuming on all future Macs
from here on out so what did we learn
about the 2018 Mac Mini
well like the 2014 model Mac Mini this
year still remains the easiest computer
to disassemble in Apple's lineup it's
pretty easy to take apart unfortunately
there isn't much you can change out or
upgrade the CPU just as the previous
generation is soldered directly to the
logic board it is not socketed you
cannot upgrade it or replace it same
with the flash storage now the previous
generation had a spinning hard drive you
can upgrade it to a SATA SSD now the new
PCIe SSD is arguably much
better in every way than the SATA SSD in
terms of performance but it is soldered
directly to the board unlike some of
Apple's other products I Mac Pro and
iMac specifically which have keyed SSDs
they're still proprietary but they are
removable last but certainly not least
and it is an improvement over the
previous generation which had soldered
ram ram in this generation is
replaceable the sodium's can be swapped
out however they are pretty hard to
access but it's good to know that if
you're willing to do so you can get Ram
less expensive than buying it directly
from Apple or by the configuration you
want now and upgrade later down the line
for a lesser cost that said if you
really want to get a Mac product that is
serviceable with a socket CPU removable
Ram and replaceable SSDs you probably
ought to look at the iMac line that's
really your only option well folks
that's all for me thank you so much for
watching stay tuned for the new exciting
product videos we have over the next few
days macbook air macbook mini
benchmarking of course iPad pro thank
you so much for watching and as always
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enjoy
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