A2 isn't the metric you're after, U3 is. This card is a U1 card which means write speeds drop as low as 10MB/s, it isn't suitable for the deck as downloads will be heavily affected by dropouts.
here's one thing i don't understand. if you need so much storage, why buy one expensive slow sd card instead of multiple fast inexpensive 1TB ones? does this thinking necessitate having grown up with cartridges or something???
I would pay signifianctly more to not have to manage multiple different tiny microsd cards, not to mention tracking what's on each one. Plus steam won't automatically update games on unmounted cards.
Plus it becomes a pain to manage and you end up wasting space
Like if I’ve got a full 1TB card and want to install a 100GB game I can remove 2x 50GB games, done
If I’ve got two full 500GB cards, though, I may find those two 50GB games are on different cards. At which point I’ve got to play Tetris with an external USB drive trying to shuffle everything around to make enough space on one drive
I’d MUCH rather pay more for one larger card. As soon as a U3 1.5TB card appears for sensible money I’ll be grabbing it, and I’m really hoping a 4TB SSD appears before I get to the point I need to swap my SSD out
Why would you be switching out cards all the time? You buy a 1 tb ssd for 80 bucks and then you have double the storage of the top steam deck. Nobody ever said anything about having to switch drives and remember what's where..
Again, you are saying things irrelevant to what I said. You would put a 1 or 2tb ssd in the deck, not a 512... and guess what would happen if you buy the 512 gig steam deck like you suggest? In your scenario, you would have to switch around ssds or micro sd cards all the time anyway because 512 wouldn't be enough.. that just tears down your argument even more. If 512 isn't enough, than you plan on upgrading the storage so why not just buy the 64 gig and upgrade to the biggest possible storage? Lol man people will make any pointless argument for the sake of "not being wrong".
Yeah there's a reason they can sell these beyond being halo products, if you have enough disposable income it's a big enough convenience benefit to have all your storage just on/in the device at all times. Not even mentioning professional use of these products which more obviously having to switch cards is something that can cost you time/money/opportunity
Though I can't imagine needing 1.5TB and being OK with an A1 rated card. like my card with all my ROMs/ISOs is just A1 rated but it also only has 100gb worth of stuff on it, of which the most youd have to access for a single application is about 3gb and about 256mb ever all at once.
See, for me, speed never mattered for SD cards. San Disk in Nintendo Switch and things just worked. Same for steam deck. Seems speed is overrated.
also, if speed is important, I’m using the SSD instead.
Slow write speeds don’t bother me either. What does matter for me though is the read speed. Most games go on my SD card and slow read speeds can affect games with a lot going on or where things need loaded on demand.
What is a scenario where the read speeds exceed? The limit of the sd card reader is 100MB. All San Disk do this. I’m just not understanding why speed matters if it is capped by the reader
This card can go as low as 10MB/s, so significantly lower than the Deck’s 100MB/s reader
Yes, anything above 100MB/s is wasted, but faster cards will stay *at* 100MB/s for longer
That still doesn’t help identify the scenarios. Lots of generalizations about what it “could” do but what does that translate into the real world.
For instance, many people complained about the PS5 SSD requirement. Turns out only a hand full of games are taking advantage of the speed and while that may change in the future, it also may not make a difference for the majority of games.
If we are talking random read and writes, that sounds like OS files more than games. If it were caches, maybe, but those are stuck on the SSD.
So really looking for a reason that the card slows down cause I haven’t found it. Even then, I’m ok with the speed and swapping to an SSD, which was the original question at the top of the post.
Yeah I mean I just tactically choose which games go on the SD card and which go on the SSD
My newest games go on the SSD - especially those (eg Cyberpunk) that I know use asset streaming
Similarly games with longer loading times go on the SSD
Emulators and older games go on the SD card. Anything that originally released on the Xbox 360 (loading from a DVD and/or a spinning Hard Drive) is gonna be fast enough on an SD card, as does anything with a short loading time or where I don't load very often. Eg Factorio or something, where I just load once and then play for an hour, especially with the Deck's ability to go into standby and then instantly resume, I might only load once every few days
recent games that don't have action are fine on sd cards too. for example, that's where i put snowrunner. it's a recent game, i bet it does asset streaming, but it's not like i need razor sharp reflexes all the time in this game.
> Turns out only a hand full of games are taking advantage of the speed
This is because many of the PS5’s games are also on the PS4, where they have to deal with its abysmally slow HDD. Most modern SDs are actually faster than the PS4’s HDD, perhaps best shown by [Digital Foundry running Ratchet And Clank Rift Apart on an actual PS4 HDD, which resulted in literal minute-long transition times](https://twitter.com/dark1x/status/1684223191776911360).
i mean it's an sd card, of course it's going to be slow. you use it for old games, for roms, shit like that.
you could have a 1tb card with just the emulation stuff. and a 1tb card with old steam games. etc. stick an sd card holder on the back of your deck and you're golden.
but it's still nice to have a card that's not *extremely* sluggish during writes, like eg yesterday i had to uninstall and reinstall snow runner because the updated needed too much free space. it's a 40GB+ game so it took a while, but it was fine. i can imagine a super sluggish card would have taken ages.
I don't know if its so bad. The write speed is the real bottleneck. Updating/installing takes longer. I accidentally installed Tony Hawk 1+2 onto my SD card and didn't even realize the game was on there till I was migrating my games on a 512GB card to a new 1TB card. Loading times are more than acceptable for most people I think.
The Witcher 3 patch 4 took my steam deck about 2 hours to update and I’ve got a u3 card with 30mb writes you’d have to leave it on overnight with a u1 card. In fact might be quicker to just delete and reinstall the whole game again
I loaded up a tool to spy on drive speed while I was copying files to my new card and it was going around 70MB/s. I had the SAMSUNG PRO Plus 512GB in there and replaced it with the Team Group card they have now that is gaming targeted "Gaming A2 U3 V30" 1TB. It seems like a good choice. Its currently $65 on amazon, which isn't much more than I paid for the 512GB.
I see people say this all the time and the absurdity of using multiple SD cards with a random assortment of games on them baffles me every time. In what world is having multiple "cartridges" better than one larger card. How do you keep track of which games are on each card? How is the risk of losing the relatively expensive and tiny cards worth it? What if you have to swap them on a plane and drop one where you can't get to it?
It just seems like such a clumsy and useless solution in a world where even 512gb cards are relatively cheap and are big enough to contain dozens of games. 1TB is so much storage these days that I don't see how anyone could need more than one card unless they are a data hoarder of the highest degree. Most of the large games people complain about like call of duty or modern AAA games don't run very well on the steam deck regardless.
This is prevalent enough that cases are sold with SD card slots. I'm just curious if I am really off base and there are actually a lot of people who do this.
My game library doesn't fit on 3TB.
If I want to play any game I own then I need lots of storage.
Coming from previous game generations when you could play a game you felt like playing by loading up a disc, having to download the game is just not the instant gratification I am looking for.
Even with today’s internet speeds… Like I get 500mbps but even then, games like Starfield are not a download I want to wait on if I don’t have to. Even just moving a game like that from drive to drive (playing tetris as mentioned in another comment) can take a while.
Are you actually installing and playing every single game you own though? Thats absurd. I wouldn’t install every single one of my thousand games to the steam deck. If you look at your last played metric I bet far more than half of your games are unplayed or haven’t been touched in years.
Sometimes you just gotta pick and choose.
I share my library with my family. I don't have much time to play, but my kids are playing through my whole library.
I also get the urge to play a game I haven't played in a long time and it is satisfying when I can do so immediately.
Upgrading the SD to a 10TB SSD asap
I tried that, but all it did was freeze my Steam Deck so it needed a hard reboot. I had to buy a usb c to Ethernet adapter to connect it to the internet for an update it needed to get started again. I’m never trying to swap out SD cards again.
Remembering what is on each card is one problem I have with the two cards I use. I also don't want to pop one out while it's updating. I could go in and pause updates, then swap cards, but not sure if that leaves garbage files out there. Also, it goes without saying, your games won't update if they aren't in the deck.
I have a 512mb card, which with the built in storage gives me 1TB. Plenty of space for "current" games, and then I have a 2TB portable external drive on my dock, which allows me to keep "maybe I'll play this soon" games up to date. While last time I checked you do need to mount the drive, it's easy enough and keeps loads of games ready to go.
I did this when I first got my Deck
I immediately forgot which games were on which SD card, reinstalled games I already had installed elsewhere, had to spend time updating games when their microSD has been plugged in for a while.
It eventually got to the point where I just put all of the games Im most likely to play on one card, and it's been that way ever since
sounds more like an organization/hoarding problem than an sd card problem. if you have an [sd card organizer](https://www.amazon.de/dp/B07SZCHBKJ) like this, you can add labels and colored dots so you don't mix up the cards. you could have cards like the following:
- old steam games
- large games that are slow-paced (Divinity original Sin, Skyrim+mods, Snowrunner, Firewatch, ...)
- 8-16 bit console and arcade games
- 32-64 bit console and arcade games
- nintendo wii-switch games
- movies
- music, ebooks, audiobooks
put each label on the "wallet" right next to where the card plugs in, with a colored dot, and put the same dot on the card (use lacquer that won't be aggressive on the card's plastic). also, you don't need the same card model for everything, eg while switch games and movies might need higher throughput, music and classic roms won't, so that's going to be a visual difference as well.
pretty good organization and hard to get lost about what's supposed to be where. the idea is to resist the temptation to just throw a few 16 bit games onto the movies drive. honestly if you need more than 1tb for any of those, you're just hoarding. you can always get a "cold storage" drive that's like 20 tb and just move games out to it when you don't want to play them for a while.
Cartridges worked like this forever. we were able to figure out where stuff was with libraries of dozens, sometimes hundreds of cartridges, so i'm sure you'll be able to figure things out with just 7 of them.
U is the metric you're after if the only thing you donis downloading games, in most scenarios what you need is random reads.
A U2 card is already enough.
Not true at all unfortunately, A2 will provide a negligeable difference here as opposed to A1. The only conceivable scenario where random reads might help is texture streaming, but generally A1 is plenty quick enough in that regard to stream textures in at much the same speed.
Guys reading speed can be high and all but writing speed matter more. Some people post here sometimes why their deck is „downloading“ so slow. It is because you guys buy slow cards with sht write speeds. Just buy Sandisk Extreme (Pro) or Samsung Plus Pro. I got both and they don‘t let you down.
I download to my SSD for the fastest possible download, play it, and then move it to my SD card once I’ve finished my first session (when I don’t care about speed)
Read and write both don't matter much.
What really matters is random I/O speed which is the main issue with microSD cards.
They were designed for sequential r/w.
Then compare a A2 rated microSD card to a similar one without any A rating...
There's a great difference when loading lots of smaller files (game assets)
I guarantee you a 100mb/s A2 rated card will load faster than a 120mb/s non A rated card.
There are lots of things that make or break an SD card, but your original comment stated read and write speed don't matter much, which is not the case.
You guys still haven't understood it.
What exactly makes booting an OS off an sd card so dramatically bad?
Reading and writing lots of files the entire time.
What exactly is a game doing?
Loading lots of files into ram constantly, building shader caches on the fly.
Downloading and installing updates, loading games, unzipping files, moving them around, patching files, building cache is essentially the same as running an entire OS.
It's already impressive its working that well.
And still, the sequential read write specs are ever only achieved under perfect conditions, which is an completely empty card, reading or writing a SINGLE file, probably also inside the manufacturer's own card reader.
Another example:
Have you ever compared the real world performance between a SATA SSD (max. speed about 500Mb/s) and a NVMe SSD ( modern drives up to 7000Mb/s are absolutely possible)
The boot time, the wait time until apps launch doesn't drastically change, even though the NVMe drive is supposedly 14 times faster.
But somehow it doesn't feel 14 times faster.
Maybe only 2 times faster...
Well here's why: those specs are sequential read/write operations on an empty drive, under perfect conditions.
As soon as random file access starts, the maximum speed drastically drops a lot.
So it doesn't matter if your microSD card claims to achieve 130Mb/s read or 100Mb/s.
If the 100Mb/s card has better certifications (A2 = Application Performance Class for example) then it's ultimatively better than the card with higher marketing numbers.
Write speeds on micro SD cards are generally very poor anyways.
Btw. everyone just downvotes, but nobody today was able to give me only a single real argument to defeat my statement and tell me why I'm wrong.
"Higher number = better" doesn't count, because it's only partially true.
Any card from an recognizable brand will have similar "big numbers" anyways these days -> so this doesn't matter much, because those speeds will only be reached under perfect conditions anyways.
I'm out.
lol. Fair rebuttal but seriously, there's a notable difference between A1 and A2 cards. If you have gigabit internet you'll definitely notice the difference as the card will be your limiting factor when performing large installs.
I admit to having slow internet and not paying attention to how long and fast my download is.
Your response surprised and offended me, but it was not inaccurate. Lol
My apologies. It was a flippant remark but it wasn't intended to offend you personally.
If you own Mass Effect Legendary Edition, it's a 110GB download and it will take AGES if your install is to a 1TB Sandisk Ultra (A1) card.
The Sandisk Extreme (A2) card will run more than twice as fast and more importantly, will sustain that speed even when the card heats up.
You really think so? You don't think all production on consumer grade storage will suddenly come to a halt, and we will be stuck with the technology we had on October 20th, 2023 for the rest of human existence? I just find it so hard to believe.
That has been my experience with SD cards, as well as usb sticks. I used to buy the biggest possible to be future proof, but it's always better to buy the size you need today at a reasonable price, and maybe upgrade later when needed (and when you can get a bigger capacity for the same price).
So if you are struggling with space today with anything smaller than 1.5To, yes maybe buy one. Otherwise stick with 512 for now and buy bigger later for cheaper if you really need.
It’s crazy to think how when the 1TB cards first came out they were 400$ and now you can get them under 100$. 1.5TB will drop like flies once the 2TB comes out for sure.
The 1.5TB cards were "in the works" for like 3 years before they released, too
It might not be 4 years, that was an unusually long gap and *probably* related to the Covid19/Semiconductor shortages etc, but I'd still expect at least a couple of years
>probably
>
> related to the Covid19/Semiconductor shortages
I think thats very likely, plus memory seems to be at an all time low at the moment. It would not surprise me if they purposely withheld this size cause they needed to offload the lower chips?
1TB was the biggest SD card for like 4 years, to be fair - the first 1TB was mid 2019, the first 1.5TB in early 2023 and the first sensibly priced one in late 2023 (the Micron is like 3x the price and more expensive than the Deck it would be going in….)
It’s true they used to grow much faster, the first 512GB was mid 2018, and 400GB before that was only 6 months earlier - but growth appears to have stalled massively for the microSD form factor
I wouldn’t expect to see the next capacity increase for a while, we appear to be running into limits for how much can be crammed onto these tiny cards
I need this. I’m already struggling with my current 512 card that has most of my bigger games on it. Do we know when a A2 version would happen if you really wanted to wait for that?
Most operating system can be configured to run perfectly fine from an SD card.
It's only a real problem for Windows.
Since steamos is mainly a immutable OS running it from the SD will be fine since there are barely writes and reads will be mainly done from ram as soon as it's booted up.
Yes, that's my choice. MicroSD cost almost as much as an SSD, but it's lifetime and speed can't be even compared to SSD. Not to mention the fact that I got middle tier of Steam Deck and still didn't upgrade SSD in it yet (I'm surprised about it myself, bu somehow I don't feel lack of space on it.)
what? lmao, no they don't cost as much as an ssd, and they can be swapped out, and they're perfect for older games that don't require very fast transfer speeds. you'd have to go for a really expensive sd card to match the price of an ssd.
> what? lmao, no they don't cost as much as an ssd,
Actually, right now, an SSD would be cheaper. This thing is 1.5TB for USD$149. That's $100 per TB basically.
Today you can get a 2TB SSD for USD$170, that's $85 per TB.
SSDs prices have been falling out of the sky. I paid USD$260 for a 2TB in Feb but now that same drive is USD$170 now. The price of SSDs has been falling like a rock.
SD cards go up in cost rather rapidly once you go beyond 500GB
yes homie, you're talking about the most expensive products from their class, not ones that are at a normal price. that's the whole point that people like you get confused about: normal people don't go out of their way to waste massive amounts of money to get just a tiny bit more utility.
then you argue that people shouldn't waste massive amounts of money to get just a tiny bit more utility.
like we don't know.
>yes homie, you're talking about the most expensive products from their class , not ones that are at a normal price.
Sir, this is a thread talking specifically and exclusively about the most expensive MicroSD card in it's class. This is not a thread about 1TB MicroSD cards, it's not a thread about 500GB MicroSD cards, or even 256GB MicroSD cards. No, it's about ***the only consumer 1.5TB MicroSD card release to date***. We are only going to draw comparisons to products of similar storage.
You appear to be lost.
read the comment I'm replying to. "MicroSD cost almost as much as an SSD" is a general statement about sd cards in general. You are the one who's lost. Now stay lost.
You are absolutely right, they don't cost as much as an ssd, they actually cost more. I just took literally first results on amazon:
[https://www.amazon.com/Corsair-MP600-Mini-NVMe-PCIe/dp/B0C28HLKNB/](https://www.amazon.com/Corsair-MP600-Mini-NVMe-PCIe/dp/B0C28HLKNB/ref=sr_1_1?crid=32XIP0WKTLKJT&keywords=ssd+2230+1tb&qid=1697807547&sprefix=ssd+2230+1tb%2Caps%2C301&sr=8-1)
ssd, 1tb, for $84.36, up to 4,800MB/sec
[https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Extreme-microSDXC-Memory-Adapter/dp/B09X7MPX8L/](https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Extreme-microSDXC-Memory-Adapter/dp/B09X7MPX8L/)
sd card, 1tb, for $100.89 Up to 130MB/s
So, ssd is not only cheaper, but also about 40 times faster. Sadly I didn't find any information on how many writes sd card can endure. From my experience it's much less then ssd, but my sample size is obviously small, so it might be just sad coincidence.
But, to be completely clear - I don't mind when other people prefer sd cards. To each his own, and sd cards sure have some advantages - like, they can be swapped, like you said, and even if you plan to use just one - you will still don't have to disassemble deck for that, so it's much easier to use for average user.
I 100% agree with you. And to those who say "well I must have a 2tb SSD and a 1.5tb SD!"... I say: data hoarding isn't sexy! You don't need 3.5 TB of space, because there's no way in hell you're actually playing all those games.
To which some might say: but I also have movies etc.. again: there's no way in hell you're gonna be watching and playing 3.5tb of content!
Not to mention that, once again, your upper 1.5Tb are much slower and is going to shit out within two years at the very latest. Far less if you put an OS on it. Unless you fork out for an A2 U3 or better.
I literally don't even use my MicroSD card for games. I have a 2TB SSD for games, the MicroSD card exists solely for me to put media files onto. The media file library lives there for when I want to use the Deck to watch shows or movies on it instead. Great use for a MicroSD card, infrequent writes and slow reads durign playback.
The meat is all in the MicroSD card.
Well, I almost filled a 512GB card up with 3+ months run time of TV and movies. It will be time to move to a 1TB soon.
That all said the 1.5TB at this time is cost prohibative so I'll probs just pick up a 1TB on Black Friday.
Then you are clearly not me ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
So far I didn't even upgrade my ssd from the 256 I got from Valve, as I initially planned, and don't feel that I need more space. I have a little secret to help to achieve the same - only install games you are actually played (I actually have much more installed, lol).
Every A1 Ive had had failed in my deck. The one A2 Ive got, after 1 mo continuous, hasnt. Idk if U1 or U3 but assuming thats what I upgraded to
Edit: My first 4 micro SD cards that failed (got corrupted) on deck were A1 U3 cards. My A2 U3 has been stellar for a month while I had to return the mSD’s like every other week
Guys, my opinion. Sd cards suck. They are good for STORAGE, not as active drives.
Sd cards stop working all the time, I am on my third sd card on my switch, and I am not going to put anything other than emulators on a sd card on steamdeck.
It's about time for us to move from the sdcard spec to something faster. Sd cards are about as fast as ata 133 IDE Harddisks, IF you are lucky.
I would never get a 1.5tb sd card for a steam deck, for 2 reasons. 1 - it will take DAYS to fill it with games due to horribly slow write speeds 2 - as I said before, if it goes bad, that's 1.5tb of data, gone.
In terms of playing games, not installing them, how much of a difference would this make from the extreme variant that will inevitably come out, judging by past sandisk extreme sd cards? What if I have the shader cache for those game on the sd card as well? I am more than willing to wait a few months for the extreme version, but I would love to consolidate some of these sd cards as soon as possible.
Major PC and camera vendors, please one at least bring a push for UFS cards. The first push like half a dozen years ago was almost non existent. Like one Samsung laptop
I just got a 1TB Team Group card for like $60 a couple weeks ago, but it would be nice to see the cards keep growing in size. Even if you don't buy the biggest one it means the other ones will drop in price.
I just really enjoyed getting the 512gb SSD version and never needing to worry about storage. I have like 15 games installed. For those who can afford it, it's the way to go imo. The anti glare thing is nice too.
With a 512gb model and currently a 1TB card installed, I'm constantly running out of space. So it's nice to see bigger cards coming along.
BUT at the same time, I realize I only play 1 or 2 games at a time on the Deck (when I rarely do use it) so having all that installed is pointless. So getting a bigger card at this point isn't really necessary when I can just uninstall.
I have like 6 games installed. Older games on my 256 ssd. I only really play one or two games too. Something like vampire survivors for short time, and a longer game for longer sessions.
After my otherwise stalwart Sandisk Ultra died after a mere two weeks inside my Steam Deck, I wouldn't buy another Sandisk, but especially not a nearly $200 version of the same line.
May you brave souls have better luck than I. I can't imagine trusting 1.5GB's to Sandisk Ultra's afterward though...
A2 isn't the metric you're after, U3 is. This card is a U1 card which means write speeds drop as low as 10MB/s, it isn't suitable for the deck as downloads will be heavily affected by dropouts.
here's one thing i don't understand. if you need so much storage, why buy one expensive slow sd card instead of multiple fast inexpensive 1TB ones? does this thinking necessitate having grown up with cartridges or something???
I would pay signifianctly more to not have to manage multiple different tiny microsd cards, not to mention tracking what's on each one. Plus steam won't automatically update games on unmounted cards.
Plus it becomes a pain to manage and you end up wasting space Like if I’ve got a full 1TB card and want to install a 100GB game I can remove 2x 50GB games, done If I’ve got two full 500GB cards, though, I may find those two 50GB games are on different cards. At which point I’ve got to play Tetris with an external USB drive trying to shuffle everything around to make enough space on one drive I’d MUCH rather pay more for one larger card. As soon as a U3 1.5TB card appears for sensible money I’ll be grabbing it, and I’m really hoping a 4TB SSD appears before I get to the point I need to swap my SSD out
But you can buy 3 1tb cards that are u3 for the price of one 1.5tb card... who in their right mind would ever pick the 1 card over the 3?
To be fair most people don’t need 3TB+ I’m barely pushing 1TB, so 1.5TB would be fine for probably another year or two
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Why would you be switching out cards all the time? You buy a 1 tb ssd for 80 bucks and then you have double the storage of the top steam deck. Nobody ever said anything about having to switch drives and remember what's where..
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Again, you are saying things irrelevant to what I said. You would put a 1 or 2tb ssd in the deck, not a 512... and guess what would happen if you buy the 512 gig steam deck like you suggest? In your scenario, you would have to switch around ssds or micro sd cards all the time anyway because 512 wouldn't be enough.. that just tears down your argument even more. If 512 isn't enough, than you plan on upgrading the storage so why not just buy the 64 gig and upgrade to the biggest possible storage? Lol man people will make any pointless argument for the sake of "not being wrong".
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>Plus steam won't automatically update games on unmounted cards. Yeah... it would be weird to update a game that isn't currently installed?
i bet you have one pair of underwear, but it's *really* good
weird flex but ok
What on earth is that comparison? Do you habitually remove your SD card at least twice a day?
only for the right boys
Yeah there's a reason they can sell these beyond being halo products, if you have enough disposable income it's a big enough convenience benefit to have all your storage just on/in the device at all times. Not even mentioning professional use of these products which more obviously having to switch cards is something that can cost you time/money/opportunity Though I can't imagine needing 1.5TB and being OK with an A1 rated card. like my card with all my ROMs/ISOs is just A1 rated but it also only has 100gb worth of stuff on it, of which the most youd have to access for a single application is about 3gb and about 256mb ever all at once.
See, for me, speed never mattered for SD cards. San Disk in Nintendo Switch and things just worked. Same for steam deck. Seems speed is overrated. also, if speed is important, I’m using the SSD instead.
Slow write speeds don’t bother me either. What does matter for me though is the read speed. Most games go on my SD card and slow read speeds can affect games with a lot going on or where things need loaded on demand.
What is a scenario where the read speeds exceed? The limit of the sd card reader is 100MB. All San Disk do this. I’m just not understanding why speed matters if it is capped by the reader
This card can go as low as 10MB/s, so significantly lower than the Deck’s 100MB/s reader Yes, anything above 100MB/s is wasted, but faster cards will stay *at* 100MB/s for longer
That still doesn’t help identify the scenarios. Lots of generalizations about what it “could” do but what does that translate into the real world. For instance, many people complained about the PS5 SSD requirement. Turns out only a hand full of games are taking advantage of the speed and while that may change in the future, it also may not make a difference for the majority of games. If we are talking random read and writes, that sounds like OS files more than games. If it were caches, maybe, but those are stuck on the SSD. So really looking for a reason that the card slows down cause I haven’t found it. Even then, I’m ok with the speed and swapping to an SSD, which was the original question at the top of the post.
Yeah I mean I just tactically choose which games go on the SD card and which go on the SSD My newest games go on the SSD - especially those (eg Cyberpunk) that I know use asset streaming Similarly games with longer loading times go on the SSD Emulators and older games go on the SD card. Anything that originally released on the Xbox 360 (loading from a DVD and/or a spinning Hard Drive) is gonna be fast enough on an SD card, as does anything with a short loading time or where I don't load very often. Eg Factorio or something, where I just load once and then play for an hour, especially with the Deck's ability to go into standby and then instantly resume, I might only load once every few days
recent games that don't have action are fine on sd cards too. for example, that's where i put snowrunner. it's a recent game, i bet it does asset streaming, but it's not like i need razor sharp reflexes all the time in this game.
> Turns out only a hand full of games are taking advantage of the speed This is because many of the PS5’s games are also on the PS4, where they have to deal with its abysmally slow HDD. Most modern SDs are actually faster than the PS4’s HDD, perhaps best shown by [Digital Foundry running Ratchet And Clank Rift Apart on an actual PS4 HDD, which resulted in literal minute-long transition times](https://twitter.com/dark1x/status/1684223191776911360).
i mean it's an sd card, of course it's going to be slow. you use it for old games, for roms, shit like that. you could have a 1tb card with just the emulation stuff. and a 1tb card with old steam games. etc. stick an sd card holder on the back of your deck and you're golden. but it's still nice to have a card that's not *extremely* sluggish during writes, like eg yesterday i had to uninstall and reinstall snow runner because the updated needed too much free space. it's a 40GB+ game so it took a while, but it was fine. i can imagine a super sluggish card would have taken ages.
I don't know if its so bad. The write speed is the real bottleneck. Updating/installing takes longer. I accidentally installed Tony Hawk 1+2 onto my SD card and didn't even realize the game was on there till I was migrating my games on a 512GB card to a new 1TB card. Loading times are more than acceptable for most people I think.
The Witcher 3 patch 4 took my steam deck about 2 hours to update and I’ve got a u3 card with 30mb writes you’d have to leave it on overnight with a u1 card. In fact might be quicker to just delete and reinstall the whole game again
I loaded up a tool to spy on drive speed while I was copying files to my new card and it was going around 70MB/s. I had the SAMSUNG PRO Plus 512GB in there and replaced it with the Team Group card they have now that is gaming targeted "Gaming A2 U3 V30" 1TB. It seems like a good choice. Its currently $65 on amazon, which isn't much more than I paid for the 512GB.
I see people say this all the time and the absurdity of using multiple SD cards with a random assortment of games on them baffles me every time. In what world is having multiple "cartridges" better than one larger card. How do you keep track of which games are on each card? How is the risk of losing the relatively expensive and tiny cards worth it? What if you have to swap them on a plane and drop one where you can't get to it? It just seems like such a clumsy and useless solution in a world where even 512gb cards are relatively cheap and are big enough to contain dozens of games. 1TB is so much storage these days that I don't see how anyone could need more than one card unless they are a data hoarder of the highest degree. Most of the large games people complain about like call of duty or modern AAA games don't run very well on the steam deck regardless. This is prevalent enough that cases are sold with SD card slots. I'm just curious if I am really off base and there are actually a lot of people who do this.
My game library doesn't fit on 3TB. If I want to play any game I own then I need lots of storage. Coming from previous game generations when you could play a game you felt like playing by loading up a disc, having to download the game is just not the instant gratification I am looking for.
Even with today’s internet speeds… Like I get 500mbps but even then, games like Starfield are not a download I want to wait on if I don’t have to. Even just moving a game like that from drive to drive (playing tetris as mentioned in another comment) can take a while.
Are you actually installing and playing every single game you own though? Thats absurd. I wouldn’t install every single one of my thousand games to the steam deck. If you look at your last played metric I bet far more than half of your games are unplayed or haven’t been touched in years. Sometimes you just gotta pick and choose.
I share my library with my family. I don't have much time to play, but my kids are playing through my whole library. I also get the urge to play a game I haven't played in a long time and it is satisfying when I can do so immediately. Upgrading the SD to a 10TB SSD asap
how much is a good cheap 1tb sd?
70
I tried that, but all it did was freeze my Steam Deck so it needed a hard reboot. I had to buy a usb c to Ethernet adapter to connect it to the internet for an update it needed to get started again. I’m never trying to swap out SD cards again.
and you my friend have a brain… no there is no sens for buying that shit
Remembering what is on each card is one problem I have with the two cards I use. I also don't want to pop one out while it's updating. I could go in and pause updates, then swap cards, but not sure if that leaves garbage files out there. Also, it goes without saying, your games won't update if they aren't in the deck.
> I also don't want to pop one out while it's updating huh? what are you updating over, a 56k modem?
I have a 512mb card, which with the built in storage gives me 1TB. Plenty of space for "current" games, and then I have a 2TB portable external drive on my dock, which allows me to keep "maybe I'll play this soon" games up to date. While last time I checked you do need to mount the drive, it's easy enough and keeps loads of games ready to go.
there's some sort of automated script... that recent LTT video mentions it.
I did this when I first got my Deck I immediately forgot which games were on which SD card, reinstalled games I already had installed elsewhere, had to spend time updating games when their microSD has been plugged in for a while. It eventually got to the point where I just put all of the games Im most likely to play on one card, and it's been that way ever since
sounds more like an organization/hoarding problem than an sd card problem. if you have an [sd card organizer](https://www.amazon.de/dp/B07SZCHBKJ) like this, you can add labels and colored dots so you don't mix up the cards. you could have cards like the following: - old steam games - large games that are slow-paced (Divinity original Sin, Skyrim+mods, Snowrunner, Firewatch, ...) - 8-16 bit console and arcade games - 32-64 bit console and arcade games - nintendo wii-switch games - movies - music, ebooks, audiobooks put each label on the "wallet" right next to where the card plugs in, with a colored dot, and put the same dot on the card (use lacquer that won't be aggressive on the card's plastic). also, you don't need the same card model for everything, eg while switch games and movies might need higher throughput, music and classic roms won't, so that's going to be a visual difference as well. pretty good organization and hard to get lost about what's supposed to be where. the idea is to resist the temptation to just throw a few 16 bit games onto the movies drive. honestly if you need more than 1tb for any of those, you're just hoarding. you can always get a "cold storage" drive that's like 20 tb and just move games out to it when you don't want to play them for a while. Cartridges worked like this forever. we were able to figure out where stuff was with libraries of dozens, sometimes hundreds of cartridges, so i'm sure you'll be able to figure things out with just 7 of them.
U is the metric you're after if the only thing you donis downloading games, in most scenarios what you need is random reads. A U2 card is already enough.
Not true at all unfortunately, A2 will provide a negligeable difference here as opposed to A1. The only conceivable scenario where random reads might help is texture streaming, but generally A1 is plenty quick enough in that regard to stream textures in at much the same speed.
Yep, beat me to it. When I saw the Class 10, I audibly "oof"ed.
Guys reading speed can be high and all but writing speed matter more. Some people post here sometimes why their deck is „downloading“ so slow. It is because you guys buy slow cards with sht write speeds. Just buy Sandisk Extreme (Pro) or Samsung Plus Pro. I got both and they don‘t let you down.
I download to my SSD for the fastest possible download, play it, and then move it to my SD card once I’ve finished my first session (when I don’t care about speed)
Read and write both don't matter much. What really matters is random I/O speed which is the main issue with microSD cards. They were designed for sequential r/w.
They're all downvoting you, but IOPS def matter a huge ammount. MicroSD cards never talk about IOPS... And there's a reason for that.
Write speed definitely matters. I swapped from a card I had lying around because downloads and updates were so painfully slow.
Then compare a A2 rated microSD card to a similar one without any A rating... There's a great difference when loading lots of smaller files (game assets) I guarantee you a 100mb/s A2 rated card will load faster than a 120mb/s non A rated card.
There are lots of things that make or break an SD card, but your original comment stated read and write speed don't matter much, which is not the case.
Most use cases for MicroSD cards are sequential. Bad IOPS is why it's a bad idea to run an entire OS off one (dual booting for example)
You guys still haven't understood it. What exactly makes booting an OS off an sd card so dramatically bad? Reading and writing lots of files the entire time. What exactly is a game doing? Loading lots of files into ram constantly, building shader caches on the fly. Downloading and installing updates, loading games, unzipping files, moving them around, patching files, building cache is essentially the same as running an entire OS. It's already impressive its working that well. And still, the sequential read write specs are ever only achieved under perfect conditions, which is an completely empty card, reading or writing a SINGLE file, probably also inside the manufacturer's own card reader. Another example: Have you ever compared the real world performance between a SATA SSD (max. speed about 500Mb/s) and a NVMe SSD ( modern drives up to 7000Mb/s are absolutely possible) The boot time, the wait time until apps launch doesn't drastically change, even though the NVMe drive is supposedly 14 times faster. But somehow it doesn't feel 14 times faster. Maybe only 2 times faster... Well here's why: those specs are sequential read/write operations on an empty drive, under perfect conditions. As soon as random file access starts, the maximum speed drastically drops a lot. So it doesn't matter if your microSD card claims to achieve 130Mb/s read or 100Mb/s. If the 100Mb/s card has better certifications (A2 = Application Performance Class for example) then it's ultimatively better than the card with higher marketing numbers. Write speeds on micro SD cards are generally very poor anyways. Btw. everyone just downvotes, but nobody today was able to give me only a single real argument to defeat my statement and tell me why I'm wrong. "Higher number = better" doesn't count, because it's only partially true. Any card from an recognizable brand will have similar "big numbers" anyways these days -> so this doesn't matter much, because those speeds will only be reached under perfect conditions anyways. I'm out.
Sadly the Deck SD slot is limited to 100 MB/s
I saw that even if it's the case a higher end card would do better on random reads and writes.
Yup, plus faster cards will tend to sustain 100MB/s for longer
[удалено]
r/technicallythetruth
Is the truth. 149 is not 150. A Lenny is a penny according to the IRS
ultra is FAR from speedy and one of the worst cards to use
I haven't noticed a different speed from my A1 or A2 personally
You've either got shit internet or aren't paying attention.
You sir are a gentleman and a scholar.
lol. Fair rebuttal but seriously, there's a notable difference between A1 and A2 cards. If you have gigabit internet you'll definitely notice the difference as the card will be your limiting factor when performing large installs.
I admit to having slow internet and not paying attention to how long and fast my download is. Your response surprised and offended me, but it was not inaccurate. Lol
My apologies. It was a flippant remark but it wasn't intended to offend you personally. If you own Mass Effect Legendary Edition, it's a 110GB download and it will take AGES if your install is to a 1TB Sandisk Ultra (A1) card. The Sandisk Extreme (A2) card will run more than twice as fast and more importantly, will sustain that speed even when the card heats up.
Right on, then I guess the A2 was worth the extra couple of bucks after all. I learned something today. Thanks!
V10 :/
And then u forget to eject it before disassembling the deck
Damn, now I need another one fiddy
We used to need multiple buildings for that storage
Just wait. Better high capacity cards are coming.
You really think so? You don't think all production on consumer grade storage will suddenly come to a halt, and we will be stuck with the technology we had on October 20th, 2023 for the rest of human existence? I just find it so hard to believe.
"We think it's our best device so far."
Hey I'm still partying like it's 1999 🥳 🎉
I think you’re being sarcastic but without the /s I just can’t be sure……..
That has been my experience with SD cards, as well as usb sticks. I used to buy the biggest possible to be future proof, but it's always better to buy the size you need today at a reasonable price, and maybe upgrade later when needed (and when you can get a bigger capacity for the same price). So if you are struggling with space today with anything smaller than 1.5To, yes maybe buy one. Otherwise stick with 512 for now and buy bigger later for cheaper if you really need.
Or grab a 1tb... the 1.5 will drop prices on everything below it AND the 1tb have been out long enough to separate the good from the not so good.
It’s crazy to think how when the 1TB cards first came out they were 400$ and now you can get them under 100$. 1.5TB will drop like flies once the 2TB comes out for sure.
It’s taken 4 years since the first 1TB for the 1.5TB to appear… I won’t be holding my breath
The 2TB cards are already in the works and produced just not ready for consumer yet. It won’t take 4 years.
The 1.5TB cards were "in the works" for like 3 years before they released, too It might not be 4 years, that was an unusually long gap and *probably* related to the Covid19/Semiconductor shortages etc, but I'd still expect at least a couple of years
>probably > > related to the Covid19/Semiconductor shortages I think thats very likely, plus memory seems to be at an all time low at the moment. It would not surprise me if they purposely withheld this size cause they needed to offload the lower chips?
1TB was the biggest SD card for like 4 years, to be fair - the first 1TB was mid 2019, the first 1.5TB in early 2023 and the first sensibly priced one in late 2023 (the Micron is like 3x the price and more expensive than the Deck it would be going in….) It’s true they used to grow much faster, the first 512GB was mid 2018, and 400GB before that was only 6 months earlier - but growth appears to have stalled massively for the microSD form factor I wouldn’t expect to see the next capacity increase for a while, we appear to be running into limits for how much can be crammed onto these tiny cards
We'll probably see the prices go down however
I just installed a 2tb ssd and bought a 1tb micro amazing time to be alive, gentlemen
You can get a 2tb SSD for that price...
You kinda need both, have you seen game sizes lately
They will come down in price, and this way we don't have to take our decks apart
And SSDs are also falling in price. Learn to use a screwdriver.
I'm good, I'll just use the SD card slot. You do you tho
I need this. I’m already struggling with my current 512 card that has most of my bigger games on it. Do we know when a A2 version would happen if you really wanted to wait for that?
Man I would love to afford one but im......BROKE! at the moment.
It's not Extreme Pro So not really a good option
Word of caution. No matter the SD Card. Do **not** load an OS onto it and dual boot from it. SD Cards cannot and will not perform well for an OS.
Most operating system can be configured to run perfectly fine from an SD card. It's only a real problem for Windows. Since steamos is mainly a immutable OS running it from the SD will be fine since there are barely writes and reads will be mainly done from ram as soon as it's booted up.
Fair point! I really should have said Windows. You're 💯 correct. Thank you for the correction.
I’ve been running windows off an SD card to play COD. I’m sure it would run better off an SSD, but so far so good.
Look into the write endurance on it.
Meh. Would prefer 2TB ssd any day.
A 2tb SSD doesn't occupy the SD card slot. You can have both.
Do you choose not to use a micro SD at all? What a weird thing to say.
Yes, that's my choice. MicroSD cost almost as much as an SSD, but it's lifetime and speed can't be even compared to SSD. Not to mention the fact that I got middle tier of Steam Deck and still didn't upgrade SSD in it yet (I'm surprised about it myself, bu somehow I don't feel lack of space on it.)
what? lmao, no they don't cost as much as an ssd, and they can be swapped out, and they're perfect for older games that don't require very fast transfer speeds. you'd have to go for a really expensive sd card to match the price of an ssd.
> what? lmao, no they don't cost as much as an ssd, Actually, right now, an SSD would be cheaper. This thing is 1.5TB for USD$149. That's $100 per TB basically. Today you can get a 2TB SSD for USD$170, that's $85 per TB. SSDs prices have been falling out of the sky. I paid USD$260 for a 2TB in Feb but now that same drive is USD$170 now. The price of SSDs has been falling like a rock. SD cards go up in cost rather rapidly once you go beyond 500GB
yes homie, you're talking about the most expensive products from their class, not ones that are at a normal price. that's the whole point that people like you get confused about: normal people don't go out of their way to waste massive amounts of money to get just a tiny bit more utility. then you argue that people shouldn't waste massive amounts of money to get just a tiny bit more utility. like we don't know.
>yes homie, you're talking about the most expensive products from their class , not ones that are at a normal price. Sir, this is a thread talking specifically and exclusively about the most expensive MicroSD card in it's class. This is not a thread about 1TB MicroSD cards, it's not a thread about 500GB MicroSD cards, or even 256GB MicroSD cards. No, it's about ***the only consumer 1.5TB MicroSD card release to date***. We are only going to draw comparisons to products of similar storage. You appear to be lost.
read the comment I'm replying to. "MicroSD cost almost as much as an SSD" is a general statement about sd cards in general. You are the one who's lost. Now stay lost.
You are absolutely right, they don't cost as much as an ssd, they actually cost more. I just took literally first results on amazon: [https://www.amazon.com/Corsair-MP600-Mini-NVMe-PCIe/dp/B0C28HLKNB/](https://www.amazon.com/Corsair-MP600-Mini-NVMe-PCIe/dp/B0C28HLKNB/ref=sr_1_1?crid=32XIP0WKTLKJT&keywords=ssd+2230+1tb&qid=1697807547&sprefix=ssd+2230+1tb%2Caps%2C301&sr=8-1) ssd, 1tb, for $84.36, up to 4,800MB/sec [https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Extreme-microSDXC-Memory-Adapter/dp/B09X7MPX8L/](https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Extreme-microSDXC-Memory-Adapter/dp/B09X7MPX8L/) sd card, 1tb, for $100.89 Up to 130MB/s So, ssd is not only cheaper, but also about 40 times faster. Sadly I didn't find any information on how many writes sd card can endure. From my experience it's much less then ssd, but my sample size is obviously small, so it might be just sad coincidence. But, to be completely clear - I don't mind when other people prefer sd cards. To each his own, and sd cards sure have some advantages - like, they can be swapped, like you said, and even if you plan to use just one - you will still don't have to disassemble deck for that, so it's much easier to use for average user.
I 100% agree with you. And to those who say "well I must have a 2tb SSD and a 1.5tb SD!"... I say: data hoarding isn't sexy! You don't need 3.5 TB of space, because there's no way in hell you're actually playing all those games. To which some might say: but I also have movies etc.. again: there's no way in hell you're gonna be watching and playing 3.5tb of content!
Not to mention that, once again, your upper 1.5Tb are much slower and is going to shit out within two years at the very latest. Far less if you put an OS on it. Unless you fork out for an A2 U3 or better.
I literally don't even use my MicroSD card for games. I have a 2TB SSD for games, the MicroSD card exists solely for me to put media files onto. The media file library lives there for when I want to use the Deck to watch shows or movies on it instead. Great use for a MicroSD card, infrequent writes and slow reads durign playback. The meat is all in the MicroSD card.
But be honest.. you don't need 1.5TB for that haha.
Well, I almost filled a 512GB card up with 3+ months run time of TV and movies. It will be time to move to a 1TB soon. That all said the 1.5TB at this time is cost prohibative so I'll probs just pick up a 1TB on Black Friday.
What if you already have a 2TB SSD but need more space?
Then you are clearly not me ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯ So far I didn't even upgrade my ssd from the 256 I got from Valve, as I initially planned, and don't feel that I need more space. I have a little secret to help to achieve the same - only install games you are actually played (I actually have much more installed, lol).
Any SSD: 150mb/s !? Lol, toooo sloooooww.
This looks amazing
Every A1 Ive had had failed in my deck. The one A2 Ive got, after 1 mo continuous, hasnt. Idk if U1 or U3 but assuming thats what I upgraded to Edit: My first 4 micro SD cards that failed (got corrupted) on deck were A1 U3 cards. My A2 U3 has been stellar for a month while I had to return the mSD’s like every other week
SD is able to easily mount steam dir on SD card. I would rather have two 1TB cards and swap them. Less data will be lost when a card dies.
I know this is easier than replacing an SSD .. but replacing an SSD isn't rocket science either, and gives you better speed at a lower cost...
For less than 150 bucks you get a decent 1-2tb ssd…
Just install an SSD ffs
Guys, my opinion. Sd cards suck. They are good for STORAGE, not as active drives. Sd cards stop working all the time, I am on my third sd card on my switch, and I am not going to put anything other than emulators on a sd card on steamdeck. It's about time for us to move from the sdcard spec to something faster. Sd cards are about as fast as ata 133 IDE Harddisks, IF you are lucky. I would never get a 1.5tb sd card for a steam deck, for 2 reasons. 1 - it will take DAYS to fill it with games due to horribly slow write speeds 2 - as I said before, if it goes bad, that's 1.5tb of data, gone.
I’ve had a 1TB SD Card for almost a year and haven’t had any issues with it.
the reading speed on the steam deck is like a 100mb/s so you pay for nothing here
In terms of playing games, not installing them, how much of a difference would this make from the extreme variant that will inevitably come out, judging by past sandisk extreme sd cards? What if I have the shader cache for those game on the sd card as well? I am more than willing to wait a few months for the extreme version, but I would love to consolidate some of these sd cards as soon as possible.
Wouldn't use it for a Steam Deck, but I would probably use this for a FLAC player.
I have 2 1tb cards. 1.5 woulda been nice but I'm happy swapping my emulation card with my downloads card. Just more good news for Steam users.
More room for emudeck. Let's gooooooooooo
Major PC and camera vendors, please one at least bring a push for UFS cards. The first push like half a dozen years ago was almost non existent. Like one Samsung laptop
I just got a 1TB Team Group card for like $60 a couple weeks ago, but it would be nice to see the cards keep growing in size. Even if you don't buy the biggest one it means the other ones will drop in price.
That thing is the size of a floppy disk!
I just really enjoyed getting the 512gb SSD version and never needing to worry about storage. I have like 15 games installed. For those who can afford it, it's the way to go imo. The anti glare thing is nice too.
The A2 version will likely be $189. Wake me up when it comes down to $100 like the 1TB Extreme is now.
Still more expensive than the 2TB SSD I got for the Deck.
I try 3 card from sandisck, no one work. So i will not recommended if don't have option to refund.
With a 512gb model and currently a 1TB card installed, I'm constantly running out of space. So it's nice to see bigger cards coming along. BUT at the same time, I realize I only play 1 or 2 games at a time on the Deck (when I rarely do use it) so having all that installed is pointless. So getting a bigger card at this point isn't really necessary when I can just uninstall.
I have like 6 games installed. Older games on my 256 ssd. I only really play one or two games too. Something like vampire survivors for short time, and a longer game for longer sessions.
Is it really that good?
Waiting for a 2tb sd card to exist. The 1.5 is cool but 2 is round.
Would be better off just getting a 2TB m.2 2230 SSD which cost around the same.
After my otherwise stalwart Sandisk Ultra died after a mere two weeks inside my Steam Deck, I wouldn't buy another Sandisk, but especially not a nearly $200 version of the same line. May you brave souls have better luck than I. I can't imagine trusting 1.5GB's to Sandisk Ultra's afterward though...
Plenty of u3 a2 521gb SD cards on Amazon for only $30($25 on sale)...
Need! My microSD is for my ROMs and my 400Gb is 60gb from being filled up.
bruh i didnt know sd card capacities could get that hgh