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Comment by doomlaser | Hacker News Reader

Just had a 2019 MacBook Pro 16" have its SSD die randomly. Took it to a repair shop and they said that since the internal SSD is soldered on to the logic board, there is no easy way to repair it without also getting a whole new board, so the machine is essentially completely bricked. I can't even boot it off of an external drive because Apple requires the boot volume to be the internal SSD!

I couldn't believe it was designed in such a fragile and user-hostile way. I took care of it, didn't drop it or spill anything on it, and it is bricked after just a couple of years due to a simple component failure beyond my control.

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Yeah that is a unfortunate design choice, I consider drives to be wear items, that is, they will wear much faster than the rest of the machine, and as such should be field replaceable units.

But it’s not like this design was a secret that Apple kept from you, this is well known information.

Might not be a secret but it's not like Apple inform you on it. Looking at the product page you need to click on "How much is storage is right for you" to find a vague : "MacBook Air storage is not user accessible".

What does accessible even mean ? Far from clear that even Apple won't upgrade/change it.

And as for the boot issue it was not present on older modele and quite a lot of people only learned of it with the recent Rossman video.

I would expect any person buying a device that costs a couple of thousand bucks to do some research before buying.

casual classism on HN. You're suggesting not only that everyone do the research, but be capable of doing the research, understanding the research, understanding whether they're being lied to, all without potentially any knowledge of how things work.

remember how normal people operate ffs

Sorry but you don’t need a CS degree to do some basic research.

I’m not a “car guy” but I can still make an informed decision when buying a new car.

I honestly hope that EU regulatory pressure forces Apple to make their Macs more repairable. SSD failure = brick is just bad design.

Meanwhile in another HN thread - "muahaha, look at these Europoors, how your economy is stagnating, no successful startups, no innovation. That's all due to your overregulation!!!111" /s

true in the context of HN, but kind of a moot point from a more broad consumer perspective, I think.

But hey, they're super environmentally conscious at least by adding a few recycled cans to the new laptop you'll end up buying after the repair isn't worth it.

had the same thing happen to the ssd in my father's thinkpad ... replaced it with a new ssd.

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