Steam Deck 1TB SSD vs Micro SD Card - Speed, Loading Times & Performance

[@sca8217]

The only plus side of using micro SD s is that you can preload games on individual high speed sd cards and swap them out as desired to have the entire library available, and not need to download the game each time. The 20-50% increased loadong time is worth the convenience of having any game from the library available right away.

[@Trix_Rabbit]

Does the microSD card have to be formatted with the Steam OS, or can it just be exFAT format with a bunch of game folders on it that will run thru the Steamdecks internal SSD with the Steam OS on that drive. Thanks!

[@sca8217]

@@Trix_Rabbit I do it through steamOS in the deck. Easier that way

[@CrocoDylianVT]

​​@@Trix_Rabbit you can just install it into the console and it'll format it automatically into the right format, but like most devices nowadays it's most probably NTFS

[@sol2835]

​@@CrocoDylianVT linux uses mkfs for formatting

[@Jupa]

I guess that doesn’t matter with high speed internet perhaps?

[@MasterBen117]

I usw Low End Games on the sd Card and newer Heavy Games in my 512gb ssd

[@NLDarkCloud]

Yeah that’s what I thinking too

[@tobyhill8510]

Thank you for taking the time to explain that. As a new deck owner the last thing I want to do is open it. Besides most of us probably own a PC, but to each it’s own. Thanks a lot.

[@rigsvillanueva4463]

general rule of thumb that my friend gave me, for the newer games triple A games choose SSD as most of the recent games are now optimize with SSD . for old and not so heavy titles , you can opt it out to your SD card

[@SlimJ87D]

Thanks, wish someone did this when the Deck came out. There was a misconception that there was only a minor difference in load times

[@Keeping-It-Real-55]

Yeah I read a few comments saying there was little difference. Too me its like comparing a Prius to a Tesla

[@metalliholic]

Yea, I wish I knew it would take an extra 5 seconds. My day is ruined 😭

[@MrEditsCinema]

I mean it purely depends on the game. Older games like PS3/360 era and early PS4/One games you won't see a difference. I'd say it's around games from 2016 and onwards you can notice a difference..but then again a small ish difference in most cases. Your bigger games like red dead redemption 2, dying light 2 etc I would definitely put on the SSD.

[@halogeak12]

bro this is minor compared to a hdd

[@leeham6230]

this is a minor difference lol

[@NikuaRanger]

thanks man, was wondering about this and you gave the direct answer the best way possible

[@MacTX]

how nerdy of you Andy to use the micro letter/symbol than writing micro in the thumbnail. 😉

[@TechteamGB]

What can I say...

[@endoflevelboss]

Appreciate your work 👍

[@hardkore360]

cant wait for the nSDs 😂😂😂😂😂

[@vadnegru]

While this video a bit harsh on SD card it still performs better than HDD. IMO it's perfect choice for older game and ones without an open world.

[@stephenh.4476]

the SD card is better for older games and open world?

[@vadnegru]

@@stephenh.4476 older games yes, but not open world. SSD is still way better in that.

[@draco2xx]

sd cards works wonders, i played rdr 2 on ultra settings while using it and runs smooth as butter

[@MrEditsCinema]

Remember it depends on the age of the game..games from early 2015 for example wont really have any noticeable difference..its not until you get to GTA 5, the witcher 3, fallout 4 etc..even then many games after that time only load 20 to 25% slower..it really does depend.

[@DragonOfTheMortalKombat]

Yeah early games worked fine even with HDDs. As long as your SD card is faster 150MB/s or so , they'll load fine. I am planning to get an SD card for my PS2 and 3 and xbox 360 ROMs. Decent for emulation.

[@photoniccannon2117]

Honestly I’m not too surprised that the SD card maxed out at around 90MB/sec. The UHS-1 standard itself tops out at around 104MB/sec max theoretical, and most of the readers I’ve tried maxed out closer to around 80-90MB/sec real world in my testing. I’ve never gotten my hands on a Steam Deck to test its reader, but generally 90MB/sec is pretty good for an SD card. Hopefully we will see better protocols and standards in the coming years. I’d love to see 200 or 300MB/sec become the standard, which would be game changing for things like this. Sandisk has apparently found a way to make it possible in their cards, but it requires special readers that implement special standards that aren’t present in non-Sandisk readers. Edit: not exclusively Sandisk readers, but certain other readers implement it also. Turns out it’s not a proprietary standard, but rather UHS-2, which is open to other manufactures but just not widely adopted yet.

[@vadnegru]

The problem with UHS-2 is that its too expensive on both sides. Because it is PCIE lane exposed to card. And it also run hotter. If there ever be deck 2 they might use it.

[@Tekgnome.]

The ROG Ally uses a UHS-II slot with up to 310MB/s now we just need large capacity micro sd cards to catch up in speed.

[@penonton4260]

@@Tekgnome. NVME 4.0 speed is 6000++ mb/s ROG ally use NVME 4.0 ~ I think the SDcard will take a very long time to catch up.🤣🤣 because now NVME 5.0 has appeared with a speed of 23,000mb/s 🗿 (PS5 use PCIE 5.0)

[@allanw]

@@penonton4260There's diminishing returns for read speed to matter for game loading. No point in going over 1000MB/s for a handheld device, you'll just get bottlenecked somewhere else. Even 300MB/s is more than enough.

[@S-420]

I run plenty of open world games off an SD card like far cry 4 metal gear 5 phantom pain and other stuff like that with absolutely no issues

[@doomguy979]

İ install gta 5 on micro sd not have any issues

[@sithcdw]

There aren't any issues. It's just generally much faster on on the Internal drive

[@davec1879]

I have both as well. My understanding is the micro sd card maxed out at 100mbs reads regardless of card speed. At least the games run from the micro sd i suppose. I conclude bigger more intensive games should run from the internal. Less intensive games can be ran from the micro sd.

[@MuffHam]

I'm just using my Steam Deck for RPGs/JRPG which are often older games. The newist game i got installed in Lego Skywalker.

[@zweitao5257]

I'd like to do so as well, so the sd card should be enough right?@@MuffHam

[@revmaillet]

my question... did you just test the one sd card... because I dont have that much of a gap with the samsung evo?

[@zxz9041]

evo plus?

[@HioImMario]

Seeing GTAV running on SD card was the exact reason i got on KZbin, thank you

[@frankwhite2072]

The receptacle for the sd card needs to be able to read the card at the higher rated speed in order to get the printed speed.

[@bleedthesecolours]

As on PC, I'd put all the open world/my most played titles on SSD, and everything else external.

[@CrocoDylianVT]

The SD card doesn't make loading times that much longer and are way cheaper and easier to install than an SSD, there's a store near where I study that has Kingston Kanvas Pro SD cards for really good prices and they just happen to top right at the Steam Deck's top SD card slot speed of 100MB/s, a 128GB card is $10, a 256 is $20, a 512 is $40 and so on, some months sgo I got the 256 one for my Switch, and since I'm (hopefully) getting a Steam Deck at the end of this month I may just pop in a 512GB SD card instead of having to do the whole SSD upgrade process

[@darkijah-andersjehovahsn7893]

Text the MicroSD Sandisk Pro Extreme 1TB VS the SABRENT Rocket V30 A2 1TB - and check the size of boxes as well and try adjusting that to the same as well, maybe do an before and after test on that if you get 2 new cards. My suggestion is 64kb boxes formatting in exfat.

[@treeplumtreeplum1733]

So is it mostly just a loading time difference?

[@diedikkeuitdejury]

Great video, very informative! While I had assumed there would be a real performance difference, it's even bigger than I thought it would be. I've got a 256GB Deck with a 512GD SD, bit am starting to consider now also upgrading the internal SSD.

[@spike178]

It's even less of a difference then I thought it would be 😂

[@quitschemucke3414]

Ok. I run emulators and such on my Steam Deck anyway. I just bought a 512GB for 30€ Lexar Micro SD (Class 10? At least 100MB/s). Thanks for the test. I think it’s much faster than an HDD but of course slower than an SSD. 20-25% performance sounds like a lot, but I don’t think it’s really important in the emulator area.

[@adzol]

Thanks for the video! Did you notice that your battery life shortened due to increase in SSD consumption? I want to install a BG4 too, but temps and battery are my concerns.

[@chickenapplepie3141]

Did you ever find out about this 👀 My concerns are also just temps/battery.

[@adzol]

​@@chickenapplepie3141, in the end I've installed KIOXIA BG4 (512Gb). I can't recall exact consumption numbers, but on the other end some operations demand less time, so it may be even beneficial. In my experience, my battery life did not suffered.

[@420bobby69]

Cool video, thanks for making this. You got me wondering if there's a significant difference with higher-end emulation, which I've noticed tends to be pretty sensitive to shader caching and stutter. IE Breath of the Wild on Cemu. I don't care about slower loads as much, but reducing shader stutter on Switch/Wii might actually be worth trying to figure out how to move it over without breaking everything lol.

[@McTwistedTwisties]

Well, for the most part, the shader cache for steam games actually live on the SSD rather than the SD card, so you shouldn't get much studdering.

[@420bobby69]

@@McTwistedTwisties Yeah, I'm talking about the Cemu specific shader cache, which lives in it's own folder with all the other emulation-related stuff on the SD card.

[@johannedreitingson7871]

​@@420bobby691

[@DiegoMilan007]

​@@420bobby69 Do you have any conclusion about this topic?, I'm trying to decide between SteamDeck 64gb with SD or SteamDeck 256gb ssd. My main purpose is emulate Switch.

[@mjcox242]

​@@DiegoMilan007heyo, this is 4 days in the future from your og There's been a price drop thanks to the oled, you can now grab a 256 LDC for the price a 64gb was

[@codyjobe]

I think I'll get the SSD. Thank you for the video

[@audigex]

The other nice thing about upgrading your SSD... you can still have an SD card. Meaning you can have up to about 3.5TB of storage (2TB SSD, 1.5 TB SD) in theory. Admittedly that's probably more than most people need, but with games hitting 100GB+ regularly, it's not *that* far-fetched to think that we might want more than the 1-1.5TB available from an SD Card. Especially if emulating, I have nearly 500GB of ROMs alone! And it's nice to be able to just copy all 500GB over from my Retroid Pocket 3+ rather than having to curate the library on my Steam Deck to save space

[@SuperBROKEN81]

Almost 200GB for Guardians of the Galaxy. Then you have destiny 2.

[@theNimboo]

Where do you get your roms?

[@LanceJay-r9o]

I'm more curious how installing on a microSD affects smaller 2D titles. Can't seem to find a video on that in YT.

[@CursedKeyblade1]

Any games that are 10+ years old I think would be fine on a SD card since they were basically designed for an HDD.

[@MrEditsCinema]

Up until early PS4 / Xbox one games I'd say...Probably around 2015. It's not until you get to the witchery 3 / fallout 4 until you notice any differences

[@ummerfarooq5383]

Still, who wants to wait like it's 2013?

[@MinosDaedalus]

Apart from NMS I find the general loading times tested here rather short and therefore the difference not big of a deal. I can wait five seconds longer on CP or GTA or other games that have loading times similiar to that. But damn, the NMS difference is night and day. I wonder how other games with rather long loading times (similiar to the one of NMS) compare.

[@andpro1992]

has this been tried with much smaller size games ie 500mb - 10gb I'd like to see that gap

[@Dumitaz]

Thanks! I will put some smaller games on the SD regardless, but just wanted to make sure it wasn't really bad, and honestly is not so I can have more already installed or even multiple sd cards for that.

[@ahmedhaoues8650]

I have the 64gb gig, with a 512gb SD card. I'm looking to upgrade my ssd. My dilemma is whether I should go with the 512 or the 1tb. The 2230 WD SN740 is 50$ for 512, and 80$ for the 1tb, on Aliexpress. I'm not a game hoarder. I usually play a couple of games at a time, and once I'm done with them, I don't usually keep them. I might sideload windows to add my gamepass natively, and play some of the unsupported games. If I get the 512 ssd, I can use that difference in price towards a case or a dock. Is it worth it getting the 1tb? Any advice is appreciated. Thanks

[@rebornlol]

I bought a 2tb from Ali a month ago and its tracking is lost in limbo. Who knows if I'll ever get it. This isn't to say that everyone else who bought it had the same experience. Recommend getting the 1tb from Corsair instead. Never buying hardware components from Ali again.

[@user-lm5dx6wg5l]

@@rebornlolis it safe to use an ssd from aliexpress/temu etc? Wouldnt it hurt your device?

[@Jaffer_cake]

How'd it go? I'd love to know more about gamepass as I just ordered a 64gb version

[@eb1378]

The size of games on Steam Deck is huge just like on PC. Sometimes 500GB is enough to install only 2-3 big games. +Part of the memory on the SSD will be taken up by the system. +Some memory should be free for normal operation of the device. If you do want to expand your memory, you'll spend a lot more money than if you buy 1TB outright :)

[@devinnguyen258]

If I use sd card for downloading heavy title games, is there any downside of it beside of slower loading time? Like will the sd card get overheated or something?

[@adamtheman17]

microsd cards have speeds up to 150mbps depending on the card same as a hdd speed, ssd depending on what you get you can go from 500mbp up to 7gbps speeds now

[@deadeyecowkillz7580]

i got a wd purple qd101 512gb sd card for one reason; write endurance, it can have 256 TBW before it commits die (or atleast it was advertised as such) and i know sd cards had a bad habit of dying randomly due to writing (iv had 3 die due to being used in a raspberry pi) and that is why i chose it

[@jaedo71]

So does it affect the actual gameplay??

[@helloimuzumakikira1]

is there a limit to the speed of steam deck nvme ssd? I want to swap mine but I am not sure which nvme 2230 ssd to get whether it is worth it to spend premium on the maximum ssd performance possible. It would be useless if the steam deck did not utilise that.

[@leakahoshi5049]

Late answer, the limit is pcie gen 4x4. You can use basically anything that use m.2 as currently consumer NVME use pcie gen 4x4. Though, currently the maximum you can get for steam deck physically is 2230 4x4 2TB. Sabrent has created 3TB but they did not want to release it to the public.

[@AJCoRePlays]

So might as well upgrade the SSD. Any vids showing the upgrade.?

[@danteinferno8983]

what differnce betweensata with1 noch and 2 noches , can steamdeck support mSata with2 Noches?

[@J.Wick.]

Well done video, sir. Good info.

[@GamingWithNeytiri]

oh i now see the Kingston Technology KC600 - 256 GB. i assume that's a good one for the steam deck ?

[@KainMalice]

So you want graphics heavy games on the ssd and lower stuff on the sd

[@davec1879]

That's my thoughts as well. Use the ssd for graphic intensive stuff.

[@spike178]

Yeah obviously.

[@MonkeyPunchZPoker]

Ive been using a 512gb SD card but for some reason my 64gb EMMC (or whatever) is filling up and I'm getting warnings. Interesting a 1tb ssd is about the same price as a fast 1tb micro sd, probably getting an ssd soon.

[@michaelthompson9798]

What I found interesting was the temperature difference on the SD card based Steam Deck ….. up to 10c warmer under sone benchmarks 🥵🫠🧐

[@CommanderBeefDev]

my gen 4 nvme cost me 75 dollars for 1tb in 2230 factor on amazon, prices have come down

[@GamingWithNeytiri]

is 1TB the least amount you can get in an SSD card ?

[@victormurori4367]

What if you were to save like older games like Half life 2 in the SD card, I bet there would be no problems there

[@lottji]

Micro SD can handle a lot. I run Doom Eternal, Arkham Knight and a bunch of other smaller games using it. SSD is still best for games where you’re pushing the Deck to its limit like RDR2 and Spider-Man Remastered tho

[@squiddymute]

sd card is for emulation , some indy games and old games , no point using it for AA or AAA titles which are heavy in graphics

[@atmphil1]

I just got my steam deck and decided to put my games on the SD card first I got angry because the games did not download with the screen off when I was sleeping I had to wait all day for them to download looking at the screen. Now that they are downloaded I thought my steam deck was broken because I’m waiting more then 1 hour for warframe to open. When it open the game would not load. So I deleted it and took 10 minutes to download on the SSD and it started working perfectly fine with no problems. Micro sd card sucks the one I have might just be to slow to be any good. Downloading on the micro SD card took like 5 hours.

[@eb1378]

You have to pay attention to the speed of the sd card. It looks like you are using some cheap or old card

[@MohaliInk]

Does SSD speed up fps as well? Or just loading time please reply thanks

[@pescadoacuatico]

it may affect your fps a little bit as it takes less time to load stuff but it's the difference is almost minimal

[@EcksGamer]

Well for those demanding games of course it would be far better to use the SSD over the SD card but for a lot of older and not so demanding games loading times between the SSD and the SD card is very minimal that you wouldn't even notice it and to be honest on my steam deck the only games i have on my SD card is the Yakuza series and other games like Super Robot Wars 30.

[@ProjectLumid]

divide and conquer use ssd for big 3A tittles and use sd for emulation

[@benalvis6722]

How much more responsive the operating system is now after upgrading was worth it alone.

[@deeps.]

So I guess it should only be used for old or smaller indie games. 1TB is a bit overkill, and 256 or a 512gb should be fine if thats the case

[@CommanderBeefDev]

pry open the deck from the l2 r2 triggers, it just pops right open!!!

[@alexwestconsulting]

excellent work. now i know to go internal ssd.

[@RubenNeves22]

So basically an " HDD " like experience from an Micro SD, well i don't mind the wait, i have an asus rog zephyrus g14, paired with a 4TB HDD and Everything works and runs amazing, things just take a bit longer to load, definitely not a deal-breaker

[@vk-fb4ox]

Thank you for the video

[@desmondsama]

Very very good video, thanks

[@penonton4260]

try compare them with direct storage ~

[@soulbreaker1467]

Another thing to mention having a larger main drive can solve many headaches with mods why some games needs special programs like fallout i fucking struggle i just give up and now im updationg my 64 gb hdd and yes you can use your steam deck to make the bootable device if you dont know like i did which etcher steam on their official recoment that one to mention this program runs with windows for those who dont got a pc for rufus or the creation tool from microsoft dont know which other games may be requirre to be on the main drive but it can help i dont think if nesesary the upgrade if you dont care for mods games run well and ondt take that much after all.

[@zbow1974]

aint got these issues with my 1tb sd card, is it maybe the brand, i am using the best SanDisk extreme so that might be part of it, my steam deck is only 2 days old though so i haven't had much experience with it yet, though i do love that 512 gigs of space, i have a 2tb ssd coming, love when amazon has its prime day cause others do to :D

[@Aaron-gm5tr]

I love my steam deck but I think valve needs to rethink the ram options on the base to top tier models. Would have been hard, but I would have been fine with an extra 5mm thickness in order to eek out 20gb vs 16 gbcould have used the extra ram as dedicated video ram adding extra value and performance. But I use mine as a daily driver and am considering my next PC build will be Linux based w/ windows dual boot

[@paperman9708]

How do you like it as a daily driver? I had my laptop, gaming pc, consoles and handhelds stolen out of my car during a move and have been considering getting the 399 deck as an all around machine. I love playing hand held and I can use it as a normal PC as well. I would just toss an NVME in there to save some money instead of pay 130 or 250 more just for the SSD. Just toss a 256/512/1tb and you're good to go. It's probably the best all around device you can get for 400. I can't think of anything else for 400 that can perform as well. You get a PC and handheld console all in one. I guess you can't call it a gaming console since it's just a PC but you can emulate a bunch of older consoles at least. I had to pay for a friends funeral so I spent the money I had saved for the steam deck. I did the right think but man it's hard not being able to play any modern video games. Coming out of emergency surgery only to find out my car had been broken into really sucked so I can't think of a more affordable option

[@Aaron-gm5tr]

@@paperman9708 best bang for your buck period! Especially if you love tinkering and customizing for it to fit your needs. Definitely recommend upgrading the base models SSD then getting a screen protector.

[@JTheraos]

Any more than 16 gigs of ram is just diminishing returns. Linus tech tips has shown this before. It's the graphics/processor that needs upgrading.

[@spike178]

Probably heat would be a problem inside the deck, noisier heavier device no thanks.

[@atmphil1]

Did you do this test with the fasted micro sd card that you can buy?? Or did you just picked out any of them that will work?

[@SpaceCassini]

It's pointless to put in steam deck fasted micro sd. Deck reads only 100mb. I have a micro sd card from Samsung, 512Gb evo, A3. His reading speed 130mb. So, 30mb from of it, doesn't work, only 100mb. (And i'm sorry for my broken English, i'm just learning it)

[@garymaya1767]

yeah most new games are slower but older games probably run just fine. back in the GOOD OLD day a game was 700MB and that's it.

[@eletunkamerikaban]

First game name?

[@ForesterVulpes]

No Man's Sky

[@eletunkamerikaban]

@@ForesterVulpes thank You bro

[@zolanddd0007]

@@eletunkamerikaban you’re welcome

[@CommanderBeefDev]

if you like the steamdeck the same os on pc is actually way better, steamdeck uses a locked down noob os, you want garuda gnome with pop-shell for tiling and gamescope-session-git for steam os you can pick at login instead of gnome, enjoy a functional pc that doesnt fuck you for profit

[@jonathandawson3091]

This video rocks.

[@heeden9903]

Great video❤

[@Neoblades]

I come from a time when cassette tapes were used to load games....so a few seconds for me is a big nonsense.

[@m4ko288]

If you only Show some of the largest and longest loading Games ever created then you COMPLETELY miss the point: MicroSD Performance for the AVERAGE title is only 1-5 seconds slower. Which is completely negligible. That includes Emulation - correct you said that - but it ALSO includes 99% of the steam Games catalogue. Because 99% of Games are NOT 50-150GB behemoth AAA Games.

[@XhristianGaminX]

Here i was thinking i was missing out cause i bought the 65gb but honestly its suppeior in every way better brightness/colors same internals and power besides storage like i dont know why anyone choses to spend hundreds more for what a a lil bit of storage and worst screen?

[@sadatislamkhan3707]

ah yes sd card the hdd of steamdeck.

[@keonminlee3792]

sd card for light game and ssd for heavy game

[@CommanderBeefDev]

decky works on pc with the build i mentioned *drops mic*

[@darkijah-andersjehovahsn7893]

SSD are more reliable then MicroSD cards. And that is kinda an important thing.

[@DifferentPerson_]

I'm poor tho

[@arthropodstopic]

what about a usb ssd lol

[@netrodex]

damn... that's a no for me. i need the extra speed. thanks god i already bought the 1tb one. the guy was really nice putting a dock too!!. but yeah... microsd's are no where close to ssds thanks for the heads up man :). might have to say goodbye to steamos for now.. it's great for gaming! but... i need all my apps. there's a limit of what i can do with wine. i will miss tho until the 2tb ssd. so i can use both

[@user-kd1ho9bu6g]

Darn valve lied to us when they said near identical performance on the sd card. Sad

[@CinePhil101]

They all feel way too slow to be honest. Life is too short

[@Jart-qe3om]

Can't wait ONE minute. 😂 tik tok generation is gonna fail so terribly. I can't wait to see it 😂😂😂😂

[@TienTran-uv9gf]

.

[@rexusmars]

Sd is cheap but got that risk of it being bricked/burned so yall do yall

[@rudiger86]

Should have got sandisk extreme pro, 200 read 140 write. Having said that I think the steam deck is capped at 100 on the SD card