Apple Mac mini M4 gets thumbs-up from iFixit for repairability – but not without downsides around SSD upgrades

• Mac mini M4 has been rated for repairability by iFixit
• The compact computer scored a 7/10 with a laudable modular design
• There are sticking points with the proprietary SSD, though

Apple’s Mac mini M4 has been given the teardown treatment by iFixit, and there are generally positive findings here, albeit with some catches.

The website is famous for taking apart hardware and rating it in terms of design and repairability considerations, and iFixit begins its video teardown by underlining just how much smaller the new Mac mini is compared to the computer in the past.

Apple achieved this by cramming a lot of components into a small space in an impressive manner, and something to note is that the power supply has been changed from a single module to a board that runs across the top of the chassis.

There’s also a large fan inside the Mac mini M4 and an innovative cooling design which is doing a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of keeping the power used in check given the limited space in the more compact chassis.

Another interesting move on the cooling front is that the Mac mini with vanilla M4 has an aluminum heatsink, whereas the model with the M4 Pro SoC has a larger copper heatsink to better cool the more powerful processor, which makes sense of course.

There’s good news on the storage front: the SSD is removable, as we’ve already heard about, so upgrading to a bigger drive is possible. We say that, but there are caveats here, which we’ll come back to in a moment.

The plus point of removable and replaceable ports is also noted, at least on the front of the Mac mini – sadly the rear ports are soldered (as is the system RAM, alongside the M4 chip itself at the heart…