There are two types of replaceable flash - the SSDs that look like hard drives, and the ones that look like RAM sticks with the connectors on the short end. The latter is more expensive as it’s faster / better - but both are user replaceable if you’re otherwise comfortable taking the unit apart.
Neither option has a cost anywhere near that cost they gave you in the real world.
Just ran the currency converter, and over here in the USA that part cost would be 3-5 times the cost of buying the part and doing it yourself.
If you’re comfy throwing that much money at it. I’d buy a 2 TB SSD and have a third party install it. It’ll not only give better resale value (although I agree resale on those is going to plummet), but it’ll be more useful as a home server.
Apple repair services are a little thin on the ground around my parts and honestly, I’m not sure the costs would be that different whereas I had “hoped” that time to resolve would be much quicker with Apple but that’s not been the case with the whole thing turning into a nightmare. More of that in a minute.
On the whole I think your Genuis bar questions are sound but emotion and timing play a huge part and had the M1 iMac existed today I would have just bought that in a heartbeat. Looking at eBay price my machine is still selling at around £1100 so worth trying to fix for £500 I think and it buys some time until the M1 iMAc launches. I was also hoping that a newly refurbished drive would be a plus when it comes to selling.
However, right now I would also take the option to run the machine with an external drive as you suggest but its no longer really an option which is where the nightmare comes in.
Remember, I had triaged my issues to be the SSD. On the call with Apple Support, they had me go through all the same efforts to reboot the machine and go through various bootup options to see if the drives could be recognised.
Then after delivering to the Apple store they called me to say there was a power supply issue which was crazy and was never a problem to me. They rang me some hours later to say they had been able to power the machine and confirmed the SSD was the issue as I had described. Now, fast forward to today were they claim they have installed the SSD and the machine will not start at all, and that they have never been able to power the machine, so back to a power supply issue (Arrgh!! what!!). Worse still, they tell me that replacing the power supply is not resolving the issue and they think the problem may be the logic board as non of the LED on the logic board are lighting up.
So, they are going to try and fit a logic board to see if that resolves the issue. Their thinking is that the logic board / power issue is what is causing the SSD to be unrecognisable.
Honestly, I am lost for words. I handed in a perfectly working machine with the exception of the internal SSD not working and now I don’t have a machine that works at all. IF I could have them hand back the machine as I presented it to them I would do that now. As it is I have no option but to let them proceed to trouble shoot and then see where that takes me.
I could very well be without a machine completely at a time when I don’t want to buy a replacement and be out of pocket on the resale value of the machine.
I’m afraid the whole experience has left me very frustrated and disappointed with Apple.
I know, costs is huge but then everything on this side of the pond seems a lot more expensive than in the US.
See my reply to MacGuyMI where I outline how this has become a bigger nightmare and options for not proceeding with Apple looks like it will leave me with a completely useless machine.
Unfortunately this is not the only time I have heard of this “nightmare” (good word BTW) occurring. I realize that digging into a machine can turn up unanticipated problems but I really hate how you get trapped into going on and on and on
It’s just as expensive here Keith. Two summers ago my Late 2012 iMac’s 1TB HDD died. I dropped it off at Best Buy for diagnostic …they told me they had to send it to Apple. Diagnostic came back dead HDD. I”m like …ok I’ve got my stuff backed up. Repair was listed as nearly $500 and for some reason I thought perhaps that was just an estimate and the real price would be lower.
Well my computer came back at that price of nearly $500 …it had been about two weeks so I paid the repair. Looked at the invoice
360 dollars for a 1TB HDD. Not an SSD…a spinning disc of rust. Literally in the back of the store there were 1TB HDD in USB cases for $59.
I vowed never to buy another iMac again. Any other display less system that would have been a 40 minute self install at most.
The saga continues. 2 days ago I log in to Remotix (Remote Access app) and it tells me my 128MB SSD drive is in danger of imminent since my iMac is over 8 years old I realize this is a SSD Wear Level issue but nonetheless I have to shut down and order a replacement drive.
I tell my wife “If I drop this iMac off it’s going to be at least a 200 dollar repair” in addition to the cost of a replacement drive. I just can’t …after spending $500 2 years ago.
So I’m ordering a 1TB SSD and a 500GB SSD (150 dollars total) and I’ll slog my way through installing the 1TB SSD in the iMac and the 500GB SSD in my wife’s 2012 MacBook Pro that some Apple idiot sold with a 750GB Seagate drive to her. It has never performed right and it has similar symptoms that my iMac had prior to the drive dying (random really slow Boots and other quirky stuff)
When the new Mx iMacs come out …if Ifixit shows them to be a pain in the arse to get in and fix them I’ll grab a M1 Mac min.
In the US the Government has had to sue computer vendors under the “Right to Repair” . Consumers don’t understand the importance until they are keelhauled by vendors support policy and service .
Of course “right to repair” doesn’t mean the company has to make the device repairable - it just means that if it IS repairable, they have to let you do it, presuming you do so competently.
One of the many reasons I bought a 1 TB 2018 Mac Mini, even though I probably only needed a 256 or a 512. Tons of extra storage for wear leveling and such.
I would get Extra Cranky if they can’t give you a sane explanation for what’s going on. There’s no reason a machine should get worse in the hands of the OEM techs.
It is possible that the logic board is otherwise functional and yet the drive controller is flaky…and it’s possible that the machine was bootable in that state from an external drive. But I’d be very insistent that they “show their work”, so to speak. And talk to a manager if you think you’re getting the runaround.
Wishing you the best of luck getting this all sorted!
Or maybe it is just completely irrelevant to them? I don’t understand why tech enthusiasts are insistent on further complicating the lives of average people for their own gain.
That’s a bit different. I think it should be irrelevant to consumers but the problem is consumers expect Good Faith behavior from companies. We understand broken stuff needs to get fixed but there’s simply no excuse for 8x markup on basic components like HDD and SSD.
These actions violate consumer trust. Thankfully the reliability of computers today means that this isn’t a hot button issue.
I’m actually looking forward to doing the install on my iMac. Depending on how comfortable I feel I might grab a used iMac off eBay and yank out the slow drive for a SSD for my kids to abuse.
Oh you can bet I’m going to be very cranky if they can’t give me a solid explanation.
Another day has gone by now without contact which has me feeling that they have not been unable to resolve the issue by replacing the motherboard but I’ll provide an update when I hear back from them.
I have no idea why the component parts are so expensive. However, this has now become much more than just the cost of parts. The has me questioning the actual competence of the supposed experts.
One of the Apple team are implying that it must have been damaged in transit. Of course I can’t rule that out, but the likelihood of it sustaining any damage on my car seat while strapped in with seat belts is minimal and it could have equally have happened in store in there possession prior to attempting the repair a day later.
I am just waiting to see what the outcome will be if they tell me it is unrepairable.
Looking at recent sales of the same spec on eBay I can see these are selling for around £1100. So I could be significantly out of pocket.
Bingo. That’s one of the ideas behind “right to repair” as I understand it - the idea that the user could, for example, install their own SSD without voiding their Apple-provided warranty or violating some Apple “terms of ownership” or some such thing. Once that’s on the table, it opens up the possibility of vendors competing on both value and quality of work.
That part doesn’t really apply here as the machine was out of warranty and he elected to take it to Apple - but if the market were doing its thing properly it would also be highly likely there would be other reliable service options available, and he may have made a different choice.
I can’t see how this would work. Would I have to install Apple-approved components, with their ridiculous markup? If I did so, how could I prove to Apple that I had done it correctly?
Personally I don’t care much about the warranty issue. What annoys me is stuff like soldered-on RAM/SSD, cases sealed up so that they’re liable to break while being opened, etc. I’m willing to incur a certain amount of liability or risk if I choose to repair my own equipment but I don’t like how vendors seem to go out of their way to make it as difficult as possible.
Like many things, it mainly gives a cause of action in court.
Let’s say, for example, you have an iMac covered under AppleCare. Let’s say, hypothetically, that this is an iMac with a removable SSD. You bought it with a 256GB SSD, and you want to upgrade to 1TB after owning the computer for one year.
Apple pretty much doesn’t do upgrades. And if they do, that 1TB SSD would probably cost you $1000. So you head over to the computer shop down the street, and get them to install your SSD upgrade for about $250.
Now 3 months later, your Bluetooth stops working. You bring it in to Apple, and they narrow it down to a failure of a Bluetooth module.
One of the tenets of “right to repair” thought is that Apple shouldn’t be able to say “oh, your Bluetooth chip module? You upgraded the hard drive, and our TOS says that any non-Apple work means you forfeit your entire warranty”. In order to void the warranty, the burden would be on Apple to show that the hard drive repair was the likely cause of the Bluetooth chip malfunction. Something along the lines of “see this deep gouge on the top of the integrated circuit for the Bluetooth? That’s what it looks like when an idiot uses metal pliers to yank out the display cable and isn’t careful to avoid the Bluetooth chip that’s right next to that cable socket.”
Probably the best example of this is that there used to be a thing where manufacturers would put a fancy manufacturer sticker across the back of a PC case, so you couldn’t open it without breaking / removing the sticker. Then they’d claim that if you - or a third-party repair center - ever opened your PC case, you were voiding your warranty. Same sort of idea. Installing a modem (this was a while ago!) doesn’t mean the manufacturer isn’t responsible for the warranty on the computer.
Well, I received a call from he Apple Store today to tell me my Mac was ready for collection. On asking for details fo what they’ve done I was told that they have replaced thee Logic board and the power supply. They claim they have NOT replaced my SSD. TBH the guy I spoke to didn’t;t seem to know the history of the repair and had to re-read a lot of the extensive notes. He did show me a long list of parts added and removed, SSD’s, Power Supply and Logic Boards. His claim is that the logic board connector to the SSD must have failed (given the it connects straight into the logic board).
They charged me for the cost of replacing the logic board which was £565 but they took the hit on the power supply themselves. I asked then if the SSD is now my original SSD to which he replied yes. So, it still has all my data on I asked. Yes, he said.
Well, after arriving home I started the machine (good to see it start at least). But it had a fresh install of Catalina on it, not my data!! I am not too concerned about that as I have it all backed up etc BUT am really unsure whether they really replaced the SSD or not. Is there someway I can tell?
Given the age of the machine I figured I’d reinstall everything from scratch but it s slow painful process so we’ll see how that goes. I thought it might stand me in good stead for moving to the M1 when they are released. Not sure if that’s a good idea given the difference in the chipset. Might be better to do a fresh install on the M1.
Anyway, just though I’d provide an update on this mess. Took two weeks to repair in the end.
This may not be the most authoritative way, but if you have smartmontools/smartctl installed you can run diskutil list to get your drive (likely disk0) and then smartctl -a disk0 with your disk name to get stats on how long it’s been powered on. If you don’t have it installed, follow these instructions to do it via homebrew. How to Check SSD Health on Mac - Make Tech Easier
