Increasing the M2 Studio’s Storage… Eventually…
This saga started in September of 2024. Having moved entirely to the M2 Ultra for creative work, I was burning through the meager 1TB of storage rather quickly. I have plenty of NAS storage, but I really don’t like splitting up my library and shuffling data around.
I had these Intel P4510 drives I got for a great price. I used them in my QNAP, but the plan I had for them didn’t work out. I found a used OWC Mercury Pro Thunderbolt Dual U.2 enclosure for cheap at Adorama, and figured I could use that for fast, redundant storage.
While the idea worked in a literal sense, I was getting mixed results with Apple’s built in mirroring. Sometimes it would be around 900MB/s. SoftRAID was better, but using it felt clunky. I didn’t want to trust this as a daily driver solution.
Shortly after shelving that idea, I came across Polysoft’s Kickstarter for aftermarket, fully compatible storage. It was a lot of money to throw at a Kickstarter, so I sat and waited patiently to see if the project ever delivered. It did, and the results were OVERWHELMINGLY positive. Life got busy and I back-burnered the idea of ordering one.
Uh oh… I happened to glance at my storage one day and uhhh… yeah.
After successfully upgrading an M4 Mini w/ a different aftermarket solution, I headed over to Polysoft and placed my order since they were the only proven game in town. I patiently waited… It was a backorder, so I quickly moved on to other things with the hopes that I would get it in a few months. I know the project blew up and he was very busy. I checked in regularly and was getting updates and ETAs, but that transitioned to excuses, then silence.
After October, Giles went radio silence. I poked around on Reddit to see if anyone else was having trouble. From there I found other frustrated customers and eventually tracked down his own thread on Macrumors where people were discussing chargebacks. This was terrible news. I cared about the nearly $1K I spent, but I cared more about just getting the drive. There are no other options… until…
In the Macrumors thread, a few users posted success stories from AliExpress. I was super nervous about this, especially being $899 in the hole, but I was up to 940GB used on the M2 Ultra and something had to be done.
The kit arrived and I was very excited. After finishing a batch of photos, I did a full time machine backup to a fresh Samsung T7, and… there’s no documentation… ok, so problem. I found a vid on YouTube with instructions on how to disassemble and install the drive. Ironically, it was someone demonstrating with their Polysoft kit.
I got the drive installed, taking special care to put the modules in the right order. This is important because once they are initialized, they will ONLY work in this order. Since they had to be to verify that they were operational, they must go in order. Note the stickers in the photo.
After this, I grabbed my Mac Mini and booted the studio into DFU mode and followed the procedures to get it restored. Annnnnnnnnnnnd it didn’t work… I tried many different things under the direction of the AliExpress seller, but it just wasn’t working. My theory is that I got two mismatched modules. Though bummed, I sent them back and am awaiting a refund. The seller was very helpful and I was going to reorder from him, but…
The Polysoft package shipped out of the blue… Giles updated the support ticket stating that he had an issue with an employee and apologized for the delay. That first day, I was still a bit skeptical. There was every chance that he input a fake tracking number to stifle the onslaught of chargebacks… but that Thursday, it showed up! Along with some lovely chocolates that a certain someone obliterated before I could get them into the photo.
I again created a fresh backup, tore the Mac Studio apart, and installed the drive. Given I’ve done this like 5 times now, this took less than a few minutes. I am still amazed at how dust free the internals were. The chamber isolation is incredible. Once I started the restore… I got a failure message. At the same time though, I heard the famous Apple C Major cord. I swapped the Type-C cable over and… success!
For some reason, I couldn’t restore the time machine backup and it insisted that I just use Migration Assistant. This worked and I was back into a functional OS in under an hour from start to finish.
It’s installed, and it’s fast! The 1TB drive was about 5400/4800.
FINALLY. The 9 months of annoyance are over. My AliExpress refund is still pending, but I think that will be fine. I wish Polysoft didn’t just drop off the map, but what’s done is done.
Sadly, I cannot recommend ordering from him until he does A LOT with making things right. There are still many unfulfilled orders from what I see in the MacRumors thread. The end product does seem flawless and he did not rush it out the door. I am not the least bit concerned about craftsmanship. Hopefully this lasts me many years to come. I’m also glad I didn’t have to eat tariffs and dodged the great flash inflation.
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