CLONE Steam Deck Drive - 512GB to 2TB Upgrade!

[@KarimJovian]

MAKE SURE TO REMOVE MICRO SD CARD BEFORE DOING TRANSFER When inputting the code it will try to clone your ssd to your micro sd

[@matt2181]

I replaced mine with a 1tb and regretting not going bigger. Saving the video for the cloning process! Thanks for the great video!

[@NerdZap]

No problem! Yea...I went form 64GB > 512GB > 2TB plus a 512GB SD card. It's surprising how quickly you fill them!

[@MO-tp8lh]

I did this last night and it worked with no issues. Some notes of my experience with this process. When you plug in the new memory via the enclosure, the steam deck will ‘see it’ in gaming mode but won’t see it in desktop top mode. I went ahead and did the clone process with the code. It completed the 512GB and now the deck recognized it via desktop mode. However, the drive appeared as a 512GB and not a 2TB drive. I guess that makes sense as it’s been cloned? I pushed on. Did the battery power step and took it apart, installed the new memory card (that wrap was tricky to slide onto the Corsair 2TB drive but finally got it on.) I reconnected the charger and it booted right away. Everything was the same except I now had way more storage space. Thanks for the video, helped me out tremendously.

[@NerdZap]

Awesome, glad it worked out for you. Enjoy! ✌🏻

[@Konguh]

Hey mate, are you saying that when you plugged in the new SSD it showed as the full 2TB in gaming mode without making any changes? My ssd is in the enclosure still and showing as a smaller size - if I just need to push on to make sure it works that would be swell

[@MO-tp8lh]

@@Konguh Hello, yes, before doing anything, it appeared as 1.8 TB (to be more exact) but not in desktop mode.

[@theonlysubfuse]

followed this video yesterday and successfully cloned old ssd and installed an all new one. was a huge help as other video guides talk and show things that are unrelated to what we're trying to do. thanks!

[@NerdZap]

No problem at all! Enjoy the upgrade 🙌🏻

[@reiisthebestgirl]

I was able to swap 64gb to 1tb drive without issues. Thank you for clear instructions.

[@NerdZap]

No probs 👍🏻

[@RetroKid]

Thanks so much for this guide! I thought i was set with a 64gb ssd because i had a 1tb sd card...but all those games had cache that took up all the space on my ssd! So i worked up the courage to upgrade to a 1tb ssd, and this guide made the whole process a breeze! Thank you so much!

[@NerdZap]

No probs! Happy to help ✌🏻

[@gwrace]

Just to clarify, drive cloning reads a drive sector by sector. So the only determining factor on how much time it takes to complete is the size of the source drive. The process still has to read and write each drive sector. I was going from a 1TB to 2 TB with no gaming data and it still took 45 minutes.

[@SirVG]

Thank you for your guide, it helped me finally upgrade my deck to 2TB!

[@NerdZap]

You're welcome! Enjoy 👌

[@MarluxiaX2]

Thank you so much for this video mate! Unfortunately the taking the back plate and putting it back on section took me 3 hours due to the one of the screws refusing to come out and go back in, but in the end I got there with my 2TB SSD on LCD Deck. Was worth the hassle lol

[@NerdZap]

No problem at all! I had a very frustrating experience when I first upgraded from 64GB to 512GB, one of the screws wouldn't budge and I ended up rounding it, not fun. I was sure to dip them all in WD40 before putting them back though, and they all come out much easier now! Anyway, we got there in the end. Enjoy!

[@bossedup957]

Nice I'm gonna do this tmr..wish me luck

[@H0bes]

Thank you so much for this! Checked out a few other videos on how to clone and replace the SSD and this was the best by a long shot.

[@immabefrank]

For those of you who were impatient like me and loaded up your 512gb oled before you got your 2tb remember to flash the ssd in game mode first then switch to desktop mode and run the code in konsole. This will resolve the issue of it starting the clone and stopping at 7gb.

[@LaymanGamin]

What do u mean “flash” in game mode?

[@LaymanGamin]

So this command he used in video works on the oled model? Because i noticed his in the video is an lcd model

[@kaedelynn]

​​​@@LaymanGaminyeah, same os lol. If you have the lcd one you can even directly take out your ssd & put it in the oled one...

[@LaymanGamin]

@@kaedelynnok I have oled

[@kevinlynch5515]

If you're getting the issue : "dd: failed to open 'dev/sda': No such file or directory" just change it to /dev/sda

[@anitagibney2547]

Very Clear instructions . worked great. upgraded to 1tb

[@NerdZap]

Great to hear!

[@KarimJovian]

Can you do one for the oled?

[@sleepycCh]

Followed this exactly and when I start up the steam deck, boot loop

[@retrom8442]

Can someone please help? I have the 1 TB OLED Deck and I am cloning to a Crucial P310 SSD 2TB, and after tying the command and my password it says invalid number 128m, I have tried changing this to 256m and 64m and I receive the same Error message. Thanks in Advance.

[@EVIL19]

Heads up, I did this process with 2 steam decks just yesterday, the LCD model and the OLED model. Process worked flawlessly with the LCD model, however the OLED one did not go well at all, got a dozen of error messages after trying to boot with the cloned SSD and had to end up re-imaging my unit which lead to all my data being deleted. Maybe I screwed up a step on my end, but just be aware that there can be issues at least with the OLED model.

[@retrom8442]

Thanks for this Video, it was very helpful, although I found the music a bit too load and a little bit of a distraction for you excellent tutorial. Thanks again.

[@NerdZap]

You're welcome! 😁 Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated. I'm still getting used to the editing process. The music levels are hard, as it's quite a subjective thing and it sounds different depending on the speakers, headphones, earbuds etc. I try to make it quieter when I'm talking, and slightly louder when I'm not. It's all work in progress though ✌🏻

[@rocraider163]

I'm getting an error 'dd: error writing '/dev/sda': No space left on device when attempting to copy the SSD. I'm upgrading the SSD 64GB model to a 1TB western digital SSD. Any thoughts? Do I need to clear space on my internal SSD first? I currently have a 2GB free. Any advice will be greatly appreciated. thanks...

[@rocraider163]

For those seeing this in the future…I followed the same steps in this video a few days later and it worked for me. Not sure why but I didn’t get the error any more.

[@kerleyribeiro]

Type the command sudo dd if=/dev/nvme0n1 of=/dev/sda conv=sync status=progress

[@kerleyribeiro]

Make sure to disable suspention in power management/energy saving, otherwise the SD will go sleep in 5 mins which will interupt the process.

[@michaelwilson8565]

@@kerleyribeiro thanks for that tip

[@benstokes160]

Thanks heaps mate i went from 256gb to 1tb in no time with your guide. So easy to follow along with the steps just be careful if you use a credit card as a pry tool 😂

[@NerdZap]

No problem! And yep, I've made that mistake before when trying to open a laptop 🤣

[@fa_some_name]

I followed all steps by the book. However, when I switch on the Steam Deck, it remains stuck on the logo. Any ideas?

[@pommedapi3847]

Do you have any idea why my 2TB with an sabrent SSD enclosure isn´t recognized in steam desktop mode? I need to add an adapter with USB-C power to get the drive to show up. Strangely the copying process doens´t go through. I would have prefered a direct usb-c connection to the sabrent enclosure to be sure the copy process has no adapter in between.

[@NerdZap]

Not sure on that one sorry! I did have a slight issue where my WD 2TB wouldn't detect if I plugged in my enclosure whilst the Deck was already powered on. All I had to do was a full shutdown and startup with it still plugged in. I put that down to a quirk of my old enclosure. It sounds like your Steam Deck isn't delivering enough power for the enclosure to run the drive though 🤔

[@pommedapi3847]

@@NerdZap no idea why, it did the same with the first steam deck, same with oled. Had to clone the original SSD on windows make an image of it and recover the image on the new ssd. It worked. Don´t forget to allocate the free space in windows or in KDE partition manager under steam deck.

[@andresturge]

Did it work now? I just bought the same 2tb and it comes in tomorrow , will i have any issues as well?

[@pommedapi3847]

@@andresturge yes it worked. Transfered 1TB over 2TB with making an image first. Resize of partition at the end under windows or linux on deck.

[@andresturge]

@@pommedapi3847 so since im new to this right, my steam deck is 512 can i trasnfer straight to 2tb sabrent using this video? I just dont want to screw it up and lose my data lol

[@HocusPocus7474]

Thanks for this guide! Just 1 thing. It appears that at 4:10, the second screw you point to doesn't have to be removed?

[@TxPat2253]

Thank you so much for this!

[@NerdZap]

You're very welcome ✌🏻

[@valhallaoutcast]

thanks clone process worked great for me

[@NerdZap]

You're welcome!

[@ixifutureproof9286]

For those new to cloning. Duplicating 0's and 1's is just that. If I clone 512GB, then I'm copying every one of those bytes. It doesn't matter what is "on" the drive, I'm copying all of it. So the time to copy 512GB will always be the same. E.g. 512GB = 512 x 1024 MB = 524288 MB My transfer rate is 300MB/s So, 524288 MB ÷ 300 MB/s = 1747.63s Then, 1747.63seconds ÷ 60 = 29.13minutes. TLDR: Cloning a 512GB drive at 300 MB/s will always take about half an hour, cuz Maths.

[@bossedup957]

The 128 M has to be Capital that's where i kept messing up

[@Aib-dj2fc]

Did you make sure the 'M' is uppercase?

[@bossedup957]

@Aib-dj2fc yes after I messed up

[@Stormbringer88]

I'm sure this worked for someone, but not mine. My Steam Deck was stuck at the boot logo after cloning to a 1tb ssd. The second time I tried to change the system to 'Beta' instead of 'Stable', which still did nothing. Only re-imaging the ssd using the recovery option did the trick, but wiped the drive to factory settings, meaning I'll have to start EmuDeck and my custom settings all over again from scratch. KZbin makes all of this look so easy.

[@lotus1219]

I would advice anyone to try booting from the drive first before putting the Steam Deck into battery mode and installing the SSD just to be safe. Otherwise, if something went wrong you would need to go through the process of removing and reinstalling the SSD again.

[@HansMaulwurfn]

I got an Error at 570GB of coping 🙄 Now i have 3 Folders at the SSD i can‘t delete

[@blueish5063]

Hello, great video! I am about to try cloning my data from my 256gb steam deck to my new 2tb SSD. I just wanted to ask how do you know exactly when the cloning process is completed in the konsole commands? Does it bring up a message to let you know its done? It just looks like it'll take a while for it to complete

[@WestmontApartmentsMaintenance]

Great video! one question though, is it really necessary to use sudo password?

[@CiKo_1]

Hi. Thanks for this Video. Does it work for the micro sd card too or is there an easier way to clone the micro sd? Thanks

[@misfitmazza663]

So, i did this and it was a success... however, a week later after downloading some non steam games, i ran into an issue. I don't understand why, but at some point my desktop got a black screen with just the cursor showing. I tried everything, including running commands on game mode that restores original settings of the screen in desktop mode... but.. that didn't work. SO.. I said to myself "screw it, ill just format my new ssd, plug in my old ssd and do this all over"... this is where i screwed up... i ended up getting 2 success, but ONLY if you turn on the deck once. After shutting down and attempting to turn it back on, i get stuck on the logo on my screen. I even tried going into the mode that reads "Steam OS" up top and also tried through bios... well, im at this point where I'm gonna buy a second 2tb ssd bc screw it, why not... I'll try this again once i receive my new drive and if this becomes another fail, clearly the encloser option is not working for me.

[@russellmay9841]

I tried this and it keeps leaving me with no space. How do I get it to recognise the rest of the drive?

[@IronbugVR]

Great guided, thank you.

[@NerdZap]

You're welcome!

[@RG6Snipers]

do you know the command required to make a dd image back up?

[@saxa123456]

Ive used my 1 tb which has steam os etc installed. Do i need to factory reset the 1tb ssd first ? Im copying from a 512g ssd to 1tb ssd

[@bossedup957]

How do I know when it's finished

[@jmljr93]

This took me 12 hours when i had my deck docked/charging with the enclosure connected to the port on the dock. Then would not boot, was stuck on logo. Will it be 30 minutes for me if i plug the enclosure directly into the steam deck? Cloning about 450GB to a 2TB ssd

[@DVo-fe8ew]

What did u do? Didnt boot the second time, first time worked but after that no.

[@Milan-cw7zs]

Thank you for the wonderful video. I have a 512GB steam deck with only 30GB free. So I got a 2TB drive and entered your clone command but it only cloned 144GB... am I missing something? Thanks

[@craigjones5939]

Should I upgrade from 512 to 2TB. After cloning the SSD with that command, will I immediately have all the space available or should I resize the partition first?

[@0xphk]

When exactly did the resize of the partition and the filesystem take place, does SteamOS some sort auto resize during boot? I would expect this to be a manual step after cloning.

[@NerdZap]

Hi, for me I didn't need to format or resize the new drive. Running this command just worked out of the box! I've seen a few say they needed to do a format first, but it seems to depend on the drive. If you need to do a format first, I'm fairly sure it can be done from gaming mode: Settings > Storage > Drive > Options (press Y) > Format. Or from the Konsole using something like mkfs.

[@0xphk]

@@NerdZap I recently did a similar approach using ddrescue cloning 512GB to 2TB but with removed internal SSD to get a consistent copy, which might not be the case if you clone the system while it's running. SteamOS has now a mechanism in place which checks for unused space at the end of the disk and resizes it for you on the fly (and as a bonus, it fixes the backup GPT silently, which isn't at the end of the disk after cloning where it is expected, nicely done SteamOS devs)

[@SoulRollerFIN]

Did you try booting the cloned external drive on another PC? :)

[@NerdZap]

Hi, no I didn't try that. That could be an interesting experiment though 🤣

[@misfitmazza663]

Does this also clone non steam games and files such as mods? I have some games modded a certain way on my desktop. I need more storage for other games, but I'm uncertain if it will mess up my mods and I'll have to start from scratch

[@NerdZap]

This is a whole drive clone so it should copy absolutely everything. It did for me!

[@eddyjay83]

so, does it resize automatically after boot, or do we need to use something like gparted to resize to full size?

[@NerdZap]

I didn't have to expand the storage or anything, it just worked out of the box for me 😁 thanks for watching ✌🏻

[@JusFoNo]

I only have like 150gb used on my steam deck, 1tb model - how come it's copying way past that amount?

[@NerdZap]

It was the same for me. I think it counts up to the full capacity of the source drive, just be patient 👌

[@stevekendall3109]

Great video

[@NerdZap]

Thanks!

[@JulianRosadoRios]

will this copy the entire drive even partitions? I have an internal windows partition I'm looking to copy over so I can have 1tb steamOS and 1tb windows

[@NerdZap]

Hi, the command carries out a block level copy of the entire drive. So yes, I'd expect all partitions to be copied over 😁 let me know how you get on ✌🏻

[@JulianRosadoRios]

@@NerdZap thanks for the support! I ended up splitting the existing drive 1TB into two partitions one for steam and the other for windows. Then formatting a micro sd with btrfs so that I could reuse the same steam library for both seems stable so far with some issues but liking the flexibility of using the same library

[@NerdZap]

@@JulianRosadoRios That sounds like an awesome setup. I might try that one myself! 🤔

[@DrewJHarrison]

This process didn't work for me. Using dockcase enclosure with a SP 2TB SSD. Starting with a 1TB OLED deck.

[@NerdZap]

Hi, at which point did it fail? If the drive isn't being detected at all, do a full shutdown and start up (not standby) with the enclosure connected at boot. A few have also said they needed to format the drive first, but it seems to vary between drives.

[@DrewJHarrison]

@@NerdZap It seems to not recognize the external drive at all. I tried the reboot and it did not work. I then formatted the drive to NTFS, still nothing. I then found a post about changing the USB type in the bios which worked to recognize the external drive as external storage but the command line script to clone did not work stating it could not find dev/sda

[@kaiichinose9590]

​@NerdZap omgness thank you so much. I went through 2 drives and before I sent this back doing what you said but shut down and restart with drive connected worked like a charm. What a life saver.

[@Comm0ut]

Too bad Steam didn't mount its SSD in an externally swappable cart. Extension cables exist so all the would be needed is someone (better than I!) at CAD to print a modded case and cartridge body.

[@GamesbyEJ]

Will this transfer over all partitions to the new drive? My steam deck is running both Windows and Steam OS.

[@NerdZap]

I've not tried that specifically, but it should do as it's a block level copy of the whole drive!

[@JulianRosadoRios]

how did it go?

[@GamesbyEJ]

@@JulianRosadoRios perfectly! All partitions cloned over, both Steam OS and Windows worked without any issues.

[@overoula]

i used this methode before like 1 year when i upgraded to a new 1tb disk i got... but this week i want to upgrade to 2tb .... do you know after clone the drive auto expands? or i will have to do it manual? from 1tb to 2tb

[@NerdZap]

Hi, my steam deck was originally 64GB and I upgraded to 512GB straight away... as you can see, I'm now I'm at 2TB! I didn't have to configure or expand any partitions, what you see in the video is the whole process! Thanks for watching 🙏

[@josem.garibay5478]

@@NerdZap Hello, so would I need to format the new ssd before starting the cloning process? I have seen a couple of videos on here regarding that and some say yes while others say no.

[@NerdZap]

@@josem.garibay5478 Hi. For me, I didn't need to format the drive first. Let me know if you have any problems though and I'll help where I can 👌 good luck!

[@josem.garibay5478]

@@NerdZapthanks, I just finished up with everything, got 1.67tb's free after it all copied over.

[@NerdZap]

Nice one, enjoy!

[@vlad0vlad0vlad]

Also dont forget to format the new ssd from the deck before trying to clone the existing one. Or else it wont work.

[@lexbeltran1354]

What format should the SSD be?

[@alpha416game3]

tried with SD oled thanks

[@RayCChoi-nj3gs]

Hi, will it work if I have a partition with windows? (I’m 512g, and wanna upgrade to 2t)

[@NerdZap]

Hi, I've not tried that but the command is a block by block drive copy. So it should copy all partitions including the partition table! Let me know how it goes 👌

[@Blartzooka]

How’d it go

[@RayCChoi-nj3gs]

I didn’t clone the ssd. I just reinstall them. And of cos it work great finally. By the way, it is faster then the original ssd.

[@JulianRosadoRios]

@@Blartzooka I'm looking to do the same did you do this?

[@Blartzooka]

@@JulianRosadoRios No I used clonezilla and cloned the drive and put it on the bigger drive. I ended up deleting the windows drive because I couldn’t boot back into it. If I was more tech savvy, I’m sure I could’ve fixed it but here’s the video i used kzbin.info/www/bejne/f3eZhnSMm7x-etUfeature=shared

[@Oliver-zw7tw]

Thank you so much for your guide. Saved me so much time from reinstalling steamOS. You’ve earned a like and sub from me 😊

[@NerdZap]

You're welcome! And thanks for the sub 🙌🏻

[@shadowhacker27]

awesome!

[@riwantorinduwan194]

One question, what about the Tani's game? will it also cloned to the new drive?

Made this look so easy 😂

[@NerdZap]

It is! Just give it a go ✌🏻 thanks for watching

​@@NerdZapwill do let you know how It goes when Everything arrives.

[@NerdZap]

Yea please do! Good luck 🤞🏻

@@NerdZap how to type with the steam deck

[@NerdZap]

Either plug in a keyboard, or hold down the "Steam" button and press X. That should bring the virtual keyboard up on screen.

[@hackarowny]

My steam deck has a windows 10 partition on it (with clover).. does this also transfer to the new SSD once I clone it?

[@unmeitobaku4741]

Great video

[@NerdZap]

Thanks!