hardware for life

Limy01 wrote:

is there any chance we as corporate peoples can rejuvenate the built to order Apple Macs, one off unique MacBooks each and every one of them?!!

You may be a "corporate person" but I am not. I work for a university. Also, Apple doesn't read here for feedback or suggestions. You can, however, let them know your thoughts here:

Product Feedback - Apple

This is a user-to-user technical support forum, not a place to buy, sell or trade hardware. If you're looking for older hardware, I suggest you start someplace like eBay. Also, small, local computer shops may have old hardware or know people who do. Never hurts to go make friends with them and ask them to keep an eye out for what you're looking for.

Limy01 wrote:

how to upgrade hardware ..without budgeting for a new Mac...good news ,,,

there is space in my MacBook Air 2015 11 inch for another ssd/ram board across the mother/logic board..

I just purchased a refurbished trash can, the Mac Pro 6.1! for a price compatible with earth life today anywhere..

if you have the money and the peoples apple mackintosh..please refurbish all Macs that are lost ..

I wish to ask ..where can I find ( perhaps crystal with age now!!! ) the first ever MacBook..raid included in the hardware without separation...pre separation of raid ...from the logic/mother board!!

let me know please, if you have one or a few in storage or the physical; archives..if apple of tomorrow is a beautiful as today lets look to that old 1st ever applemac and learn from scratch what's not lived as a MacBook yet to the civilian masses...whats next? unstoppable..evolution...thank you

mad oil

luv u all...

Apple never shipped a second storage device with MacBook Air, so you will need to design and implement both the hardware connection to the storage and then either implement hardware RAID with that, or get the integrated or add-on software RAID working.

With an SSD, RAID-0 isn’t all that necessary, and RAID-1 is questionable given the low SSD failure rates. Getting the data archived elsewhere is the bigger benefit for most folks than would be RAID, as RAID doesn’t provide backups, or provide redundancy against theft or loss or damage, or against failures in the core hardware. Only against SSD failure. Which again, isn’t all that common.

If you do get to where you want on your proposed hardware enhancement path with this MacBook Air, you will inherently also have the skills to repair Apple hardware, and can then choose to work for yourself or for a local business doing repairs and doing the sorts of complex custom hardware integration work involved in retrofitting storage and software or hardware RAID into an existing Mac. Or working for Apple on new Macs. Which usually means you will probably also then have your pick of used or new systems.

And yes, used Mac hardware prices tend to drop quickly once the Mac itself has fallen off macOS support. But the older hardware can also have much lower performance and capacity and for much higher power requirements. A Mac Pro 2013 is far slower than Mac mini and Mac Studio for instance, and needs more power. Put differently, a previous-generation Apple silicon mini M1 2020 will out-perform Mac Pro 2013 in many (most?) ways. That older Intel processor is both slow, and power-hungry.

Some performance comparisons:

Mac Pro 2013: Geekbench 5 (SC):811 Geekbench 5 (MC):3234

Mac mini M1 8C/8G: Geekbench 5 (SC):1689 Geekbench 5 (MC):7401

Mac mini M2 8C/10G: Geekbench 5 (SC):1931 Geekbench 5 (MC):8809

Studio M1 Max 10C/24G: Geekbench 5 (SC):1757 Geekbench 5 (MC):12420

I don’t have the wattages handy, but a mini sips power compared with a Xeon in a Mac Pro or Xserve.

SC: single core performance. MC: multi-core performance.