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Mac mini 2018 RAM upgrade service

One pleasant surprise about the 2018 Mac mini is that the RAM* is once again upgradeable and you can fit up to 64GB RAM. This makes it potentially a good choice of machine for musicians, programmers and anyone else needing oodles of RAM.

However the price Apple are charging for Build To Order RAM upgrades are frankly shocking. In August 2019 a 32GB upgrade was priced at £540, which is astonishing considering you can currently buy compatible RAM from quality vendors for £130. Even if you factor in our charge to fit the RAM for you, Apple are demanding a ~300% mark up.

It’s not even that difficult to replace the RAM yourself. You just need to be very careful when dismantling, especially around the WiFi antennae. Also wear protective gloves – when pushing the logic board out of the case you have to use quite a bit of controlled force, so as it releases the board shoots forward and can trap a finger against the sharp edges of the case.

Do a quick boot test before final reassembly to ensure the RAM is recognised, and then after complete reassembly run a RAM test for 24hrs or so as a “soak test”. After that you can be pretty confident there are no compatibility issues going forward.

You should be aware that if the machine needs to be repaired under warranty you would need to refit the original RAM. However in my experience the Macmini has been one of the very few Mac products in the last 10 years that has basically been bombproof. IMHO it’s a small but acceptable risk, especially when balanced against the huge cost savings to be made.

Have a 2018 Macmini? Need more RAM but want to save some money? Give us a call on 01380 830224 to discuss options, pricing and turn-around time.

*  The hard drive is unfortunately soldered to the motherboard, ruling out future SSD upgrades. I’m not sure how many people really need T2 enforced hardware disk encryption as FileVault should be secure enough for everyone but the most security obsessed. Of course it does mean Apple can maintain their astonishingly high SSD pricing, but I’m sure that has nothing to with it…

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