In the last few years, soldered storage has gone from a strange Apple quirk, to a standard way of manufacturing laptops. There was outrage when apple first started soldering RAM and storage, but you’ll now find soldered SSDs in laptops from Microsoft, HP, Dell, and any other manufacturer you can think of. That’s not to mention all the millions of phones & tablets with soldered storage.
Benefits
From a manufacturing point of view, soldering the SSDs makes sense. Fewer “bulky” connectors on the motherboard can lead to thinner and lighter computers. Because a 5mm thick laptop is just not thin enough! There are also performance benefits by integrating the components closer together. See the PlayStation 5 and M1/M2 Macs for examples of that performance taken to the extreme.
Recovery Problems
But there are huge downsides to soldered storage when things go wrong. You can’t just whip out the SSD and access the files. And even if you went to the trouble of desoldering the chips, you’ll often find they are encrypted. In some cases the only way forward is to attempt to repair the original damaged motherboard, or transfer numerous undocumented components to a working replacement board. Lack of schematics from the manufacturers mean this type of work is often time consuming, and therefore expensive.
E-Waste
Even ignoring the problems with recovering data from soldered parts, there is a new problem of electronic waste. When a pluggable SSD or RAM module fails, it can be replaced. If those parts are soldered to the board, you’re probably sending the whole thing off to landfill, or “recycling” as it’s sometimes known.
Solutions
The number of recovery options are as varied as the devices themselves. If you have a faulty device with soldered storage, get in touch. In many cases there are ways to recover the data.
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