A lot of our tech these days feels like they are meant to be replaced and not repaired. This makes financial sense as companies would much rather us buy a brand new product rather than hold onto a product for a long time and constantly repairing it when it gets broken. However, Apple’s new Mac Pro seems to be bucking that trend.
According to a teardown of the computer by the folks over at iFixit, they have rated the new Mac Pro 9 out of 10 in terms of repairability, making it one of Apple’s easiest-to-repair products to date. To a certain extent this doesn’t come as a complete surprise given the modular nature of the computer, where Apple had designed it so that parts could be easily swapped in and out and upgraded when necessary.
Given that this is a $5,000 computer, it seems that Apple understands that realistically, they cannot expect Mac Pro customers to keep shelling out $5,000 (or more) whenever something goes wrong. However, while for the most part the computer is easy to repair, iFixit does have some caveats.
For example, the SSDs are custom-made by Apple and is tied to the T2 security chip. This is good for IT admins and users who are worried about security, but this does complicate things considerably if you’re looking to replace or upgrade it yourself, but other than that, it seems that replacing parts like the processor and the RAM should not be an issue as they are regular socketed components.