Here are the best SD cards for Steam Deck

The $399.99 Steam Deck only comes pinch 64 GB of soul storage, conscionable capable room for a fistful of bite-sized games, aliases 1 big, open-world crippled that has a hefty installation size. That’s not ideal, but don’t stress, arsenic upgrading nan Deck’s retention is some easy and comparatively affordable.

Like nan Nintendo Switch, each Steam Deck supports microSD cards for retention description , and those cards travel successful a scope of capacities — galore of which are regularly discounted. Whether you want a humble upgrade to 256 GB, a bigger 512 GB card, aliases nan eventual 1 TB boost, we person immoderate recommendations that’ll fto you get to downloading much games from nan Steam store. These options meet nan Steam Deck’s velocity requirements (more connected that below). You’ll conscionable request to spell done a quick formatting process.

Is velocity important?

While immoderate pricier microSD cards advertise faster transportation speeds than others, which should equate to faster crippled instal times, nan wide statement is that astir models present a akin acquisition connected nan Steam Deck. Compared to moving games disconnected nan $399.99 model’s eMMC soul storage, utilizing a microSD paper delivers astir identical capacity successful astir games (the pricier Steam Deck models usage NVMe SSDs, which is faster than eMMC and microSD).

The console’s microSD paper slot supports UHS-1 people cards, a spec that tops retired astatine a 104 MB/s transportation rate. That’s rather a spot slower than nan advertised transportation velocity that galore of today’s run-of-the-mill microSD cards boast. So, our proposal is to attraction connected getting arsenic overmuch retention arsenic you tin spend alternatively worrying astir speed.

Update (Feb. 27): This station was written arsenic nan Steam Deck was releasing successful early 2022, and has been updated to bespeak that it is has been disposable for astir 1 year. We’ve besides adjusted nan layout and added specifications astir nan Steam Deck’s UHS-1 compatibility.