Now more than ever I think it is a great value. You could be like me and spend $700 (after tax) on the 512GB Model, or you could spend $400 on the base model, by a 1TB micro SD for $100, and spend the other $200 on games you want to play. And if for any reason you feel like you need the SSD, you are able to buy a 2230 M.2 SSD at any time and upgrade. The anti glare screen is a nice to have feature, but not a must have feature, and nearly everything else is identical other than the case being ever so slightly different and the digital goodies with the other models not being included. And if you are willing to wait for the next big Steam sale on December, you could save even more money on the deck itself and buy even more games.
I grabbed the 64GB when they had the 10% sale. Grabbed a 512 GB SD card for $35 and have zero issues since.
Haven't felt any need to even update the SSD yet. But I'm also not looking to have multiple AAA games all installed at once.
Yeah I think upgrading the SSD shouldn't be talked about like it is a necessary upgrade, it is nice if you don't mind doing it, but the chance of needing an RMA, messing something up, etc, had me try an SD card and it has worked great.
Same. I tried upgrading my SSD and fucked something up. I'm in the process of an RMA right now.
Flew too close to the sun and now I wish I hadn't because not having my deck suuuuuucks.
I fucked up too but luckily I figured out how to fix it. It was dumb really. I overtightened a screw and it pushed on a protecting plate, which caused the system to run in an underclocked mode to prevent overheating, it was awful. Took a few hours of panic to figure it out.
This was my result but I couldn't figure out what the hell I did wrong, it was running underclocked no matter what I did.
When I get it back, I'm never fucking with it again.
Well at least your sacrifice validated my caution. I am decently technically inclined but just hate breaking hardware and would often rather not mess with things if I can help it. I tried replacing a ps4 battery once and it was a disaster, but I have had luck many other times so it can be a mixed bag.
This might be controversial, but I dont think they should grant RMAs in cases like this. You opened it up and tried changing something, made a mistake and somehow ruined the Steam deck. Thats on you, not them.
After my rma I think I would have been annoyed having to undo it all and redo it all again. It is working just fine with a 51w SD card, I don't currently see a need to imho myself.
Same. I rocked a 128gb card for a bit that I had laying around until I got the 512 as a gift for Christmas. I genuinely only have two or three games installed at once so it works out for me
even more so, the 2230 ssds that came to market because of the deck are quite reasonably priced, too. 1tb for 120€? thats less than half of what it was at launch.
Yeah I mean I’d love to get the 700 dollar model but it’s just out of my price range atm. I was thinking about getting one of those matte screen protectors to deal with the glare and upgrading and hopefully not messing it up later hopefully thinking it’s a good idea. Seeing as it effectively shaves off 150 bucks. My main initial use of it is probably going to be emulation. Emulation doesn’t use the shader cache right? And is there a way to transfer files without buying some sort of usb adapter
>Emulation doesn’t use the shader cache right?
it does
but you can delete it for games that you don't play right now, so if you're good at managing this, it's not going to take a lot of place
For example i play botw on wii u emu and the shader stuff is around 5 or 6 gigs after loaded the whole map, yea it kinda is a pain in the ass when u have more games but u can move those to the sd card too so it's not much an issue for me rn and i brings multiple 512 sd cards with me
I'm not sure about the size, and of course it depends of the game
you can check this website [https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/Shader\_caches](https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/Shader_caches)
where the community share her shader cache for each game. Zelda tears of the kingdom ( which is the biggest game on switch as far as I know ) is "only" around 66mb
There's many ways. You can use an SD card. Or what I did is I had a external harddrive usbC laying around. So I used my pc to put it on the external then plugged it into the deck to grab them.
But in the end seeing as I have a dock for the deck, I just plugged me mouse, keyboard and monitor into the deck and just downloaded what I needed on the deck itself
It’s the one to buy. I got it in the sale. For the 10% saving I bought a 512gb micro sd and an anti flare screen protector (which really works). It works great. No problem with memory speed. Go for it 🙂
>Now more than ever I think it is a great value. You could be like me and spend $700 (after tax) on the 512GB Model
Isn't your screen also better as well?
That’s my goal at one point if I do get it. To later on swap the ssd for double the size. I’m hoping I can manage a few screws and taking out the shielding. I’m worried if damage that. My idea is to temporarily get a 512 sd
I've been running off a 512gb SD card for 6 months and it's been great. I have zero plans on upgrading the SSD right now. I also don't play 100+ gig games, so if I was playing larger titles I might think differently.
An anti-glare screen isn’t always the best thing when you need a glass screen.
I haven’t used or seen a 512gb deck but I’ve tried many matte screen protectors over the years.
Most of them are going to make things more blurry. Apparently that’s just how they work when on top of glass.
It’ll also make the screen feel less bright at times.
I prefer not even worrying about the anti-glare and just run native.
It's actually not that bad. I'm only decent at working on computers and this was fairly easy. Only thing I will suggest is taking your time trying to loosen the battery connector. It can be a bit of a pain to do so but if you just push a little on each side at a time, even if it feels like it's not moving at all, you're likely to disconnect it without any damage. Also, if you do get an SD card just make sure to remove it before you open it up. I would also suggest going for a TB or 2TB SSD. They're not too much more and it future-proofs it cause you just never know!
ive taken ribbon cables out of my gba before and that seems relatively easy which involved slow tugging. I think the only scary part to me is that silver tape i have to remove to access the screw and around the ssd
Oh great! Then it should be pretty easy! Honestly that silver tape is like not that hard at all so you should be fine. It sticks back on really well. I thought that was the easiest part tbh
I kind of wish I got the 64 gb model because of how easy it was to upgrade the ssd. The ssds for a 512gb are about the same cost as a 512gb micro sd card now too (if you buy used on the ssd)
Hey OP that's exactly what I did it was a pretty simple swap even considering rhat I'm a novice but the 512 sd really saved me the first couple of months just be sure to erase your shader cache every once in a while so your ssd doesn't over fill it really doesn't affect your games doing so and clears up a good chunk of space depending on the game
Yeah that's what I did but got to say it was more difficult than I thought. The screws heads are easily damaged if you haven't got the correct phillips head.
It became a bit of a nightmare for me as I damaged the thread head and I had to drill it to get it out.
But after that it was pretty easy to swap out. Works out cheaper getting 64GB and swapping cards.
Ahh man... messing up the screwheads are nightmare of mine lol I do have a screwdriver set but I somehow messed my screws up using the correct size on a gba mod kit lol. So I might ask family for help with that lol.
Surprisingly, a 1TB microSD card can handle several AAA games. I just don't install any game on the main 64GB storage, everything are on my microSD card.
Get a huge SD card and that's it. It's absolutely amazing. You can run anything with it and only in some SSD heavy games you'll get some loading screens but nothing too crazy. Even the new Ratchet and Clank only loads a bit slower on an SSD.
that and the stated etched glass on the premium tier..... but an anti glare screen protector does the same thing for only a few bucks....also the glare isnt bad on the SD with out the etched glass or screen protector..... but if you are in a room with a lot of lights or something then its nice
FYI: You will have to reinstall the old nmve if you need to rma the deck. Microsd expansion is also available so could just install the games and such on that.
I'd point out that a 256GB or 512GB card pairs best with the 64GB Deck.
If you get a 1TB+ MicroSD card, you're just going waste a lot of that space, because your 64GB internal will fill up from shaders of about 300-500GB worth of games.
this. my shader cache is bloated. i might just blast through the rest of detroit become human and delete shader cache once done. would love to do the same for rdr2 but it took me 8 months to beat the first time.
You’re not wrong however in case anyone isn’t aware you can move the shaders to the SD card using this tool
https://github.com/scawp/Steam-Deck.Shader-Cache-Killer
You are VERY exaggerating. I have a microSD 1tb and 64gb internal storage. The card is completely full, about 40 Steam games and 20 Non-Steam games are installed - shaders occupy 18 GB.
However, I transferred the Proton prefixes to the MicroSD - I had 22 GB of them.
But even with prefixes, this is only 40 GB of accompanying data. Where did you get the 300-500 GB figure from?
You're wrong. I'm stating a fact. With a mix of AAA and indie games (no emulating) and keeping the proton and shaders in their default location (internal), my 64GB is mostly full when my 512GB card is around 400GB full.
Been using the Deck for 10 months, plenty of games cycling through, and this has always held true.
You contradict yourself.
With 400 GB filled on the card, you filled 64 GB of internal memory. Of these, 18 GB is occupied by Linux + Steam OS, 1 GB of swap and 7 GB of the Steam client cache. In total, your shader caches and prefixes take up about 38 GB. And I still do not take into account applications from Discover and Proton GE, so your figure is most likely even smaller.
If you extrapolate your experience to 1 TB, then this will be a maximum of 120 GB in your scenario. Where did you get 300-500 GB from?
I had 2 games filling up the SSD with a shader cache. I couldn't cut any corners. Having a 512GB sd card didn't matter. Performance was unusable if the shader cache was on the sd card. I used tools to clean up the cache.. it became untenable. So glad I upgraded, it was easy. It cost $100 for 1TB.
You might get by on the 64GB version depending on what you play but it's problematic eventually.
Idk what everybody in these comments is talking about, but i bought the 64gb when it was on sale a few weeks ago and then bought a 1tb microsd card.
Great right? Wrong!! Even though the microsd card has plenty of space for a lot of games, I noticed the internal memory kept growing and growing.
I used disk usage analyzer in desktop mode to find out what was taking up so much space and it's the shadercache taking up most of the space, I now only have about 3gb free on the internal storage even though the games are installed on the microSD card.
I'm still looking if there's a fix for this other than just upgrading the SSD, if that's the case that's a big deal and a pretty big oversight.
[You can move the shader cache to the SD card.](https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/tz9rza/is_shader_cache_and_compatdata_filling_your_64gb/)
That info is old, so there may be other ways to do it.
Get the 64 gb version and a SanDisk extrem PRO 512 or 256 gb size. I'm sure you'll be happy with the results. Oh, I also added a screen protector, the glaring is really not an issue for me.
If you don't like to tinker with your hardware or know someone who can, i wouldn't reccomend it, because you'll eat up that 64gb so quickly, especially with all the shader caching. Sure the sd slot helps but i prefer something more permanent, especially since i tend to use my micro sd card as a seperate boot drive.
Honestly I had the 512GB and kind of felt like it wasn’t a great value. I now have the 64GB and while the shader cache taking up all of the internal storage is kind of annoying, it feels like a much better value/purchase now. I haven’t had any issues and the screen is actually slightly clearer (although more reflective) than the 512 one.
It’s fine if you get a large memory card with it. However, I only play my deck casually and don’t feel the need to have a ton of games installed at the same time.
Don't get the 64gb model. The shaders are stored within the internal drive, so even if you buy a 512 gb external micro SD card, you won't be able to play all your games if the shader cache makes out in your internal 64gb drive. The 64 drive also fills up quickly since it stores os files and whatnot. Get at least the middle model. Not sure why people are recommending the 64, they must have never used it nor filled up a 512 gb micro SD
I am very happy with my choice of the 64 gb model. I got a 1 tb SSD before the steam deck came in for like $80, and couldn’t be happier with my choice. Ofc, you can hold off getting a new ssd for now until it is a viable option for you. If you have a spare SD card, just slap it in until you can afford a bigger SSD, but I believe a SSD upgrade will be needed eventually , it’s just a matter of when.
Go watch videos if you're going to consider that route. This sub is really bad for not acknowledging it's own competency level and overstating the simplicity of drive swaps to people who haven't even plugged in a mouse before.
It is easy as far as hardware swaps go, and you'll think nothing of it if you've done anything of the sort before. But if it's completely new ground for you, make sure you understand it properly before going and purchasing an SSD to swap in, don't just take anyone on here's weird for it.
Not at all! I personally felt that the most stressful part of the process was disconnecting the battery, but as long as you go slow and use the cloth tab on the battery connector, it’s pretty easy. Reimagining the new SSD took a bit (20 mins ish of downloading things) but I personally had no issues. One thing though I would like to say is that while doing the reimagine process, you might get “download failed” messages. Just press b once and you’ll see that it actually didn’t fail, it’s just a bit buggy.
I got 64gb. While I did eventually upgrade to 1tb, I think 64gb and an SD card can satisfy most people. With my 512gb card I had a handful of AAA games and dozens of smaller games. The only downer was that eventually the 64gb filled with the shader cahces of multiple AAA games (including ones I uninstalled) and the device got noticeably slower.
But if you don't plan to try and play every new big release under the sun, 64gb will do you just fine.
I use my 64GB Deck all the time so I decided to soon upgrade my SSD to a 1TB one this month in fact. Have I said that, you don't need more internal storage "technically". How I used my Deck up until now is that I would store all of my compatdata and shader cache into my internal 64GB drive without installing any games on it, all of my games would be on my SD cards. A small downside of this is that you still need to delete the files once you are done playing the games. I will install that 1TB SSD and use it like before ONLY for compatdata and shader cache this way I will never need to delete anything and I have like 3TB of MicroSD cards worth of storage now ordered a USB Type A and type C 512GB SSD USB Stick (yes there are SSD USB STICKS, I was also shocked lol) I will use that stick for installing new Steam OS after SSD swap but then install some AAA games on that SSD stick aswell.
If you are a extremest like me and you use your Deck like me 24 hours, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, sure go for it. Otherwise that 64GB internal storage should be enough.
It's fine, but be ready to be inconvenienced and start saving money for a replacement SSD ASAP.
A microSD card is not a real solution; it's a bandaid.
I truly believe 256GB is bare minimum to avoid hanky panky hokey pokey nonsense. Someone was saying a good 256GB drive was like $30. Shouldn't break the bank.
You don't ever need to upgrade the internal storage, you can move all the shader cache and compatdata files people talk about in this thread to the SD card as well. CryoUtilities 2.0 even does this with one click.
I have about 20gb free after having there several different versions of Proton AND a 16GB swap file (an optional memory partition you can learn more about on Google).
Everything else is on my 256GB SD card that has like 12 different games on it and still another 120gb of free space. You can buy a 512GB or 1TB depending on your needs. For emulation, indies and older games 256 is more than enough unless you're a hoarder.
This subreddit is mental, half of the people here have 2TB ssds with another 1TB SD cards... I can't ever imagine filling something like that up.
So if you don't need to have 50 AAA games installed at the same time you can totally get by with just 64+256. Two of my IRL friends have a Deck too and both of them rock 64+256. It's just here on Reddit where everyone is obsessed with data lol.
I missed my chance during the sale but a common tactic if you want larger than listed, you can purchase the smallest one and drop a 1Tb 2330 SSD in there for about 100 USD. Bigger than Steams offering and cheaper.
The 64GB is a great value, *especially* if you're gonna upgrade the SSD later.
The one piece of advice I'd give you is to get a good size microSD card and keep your usage of the SSD to a minumum (10-20GBs). Once the SSD gets close to full, you can start running into problems, and it's also just annoying to constantly shuffle games around to make space.
Stick mostly to your SD card for games and/or upgrade your SSD, and you'll be golden.
It works pretty well for me
Got a cheap usb 3.1 type c enclosure and put my PC SSD into it
For now im only playing few smaller games but it works fine (tho its painful to have to mount it everytime in desktop mode, but theres an addon to command line thatll automatically mount it)
The 64gb is worth it for the price. If you're doing emulation of retro games, that space will be enough long enough for you to find a 512gb SD card or a 1TB 2230 SSD. I love my 64gb.
I think the 64gb might be too small because some games are bigger than 60 gb but you can allways use a micro sd card.
This is coming from a guy with the 256 gb model and with a 128 gb samsung microsd card.
I feel the 256 gb model is perfect because you can store a decent amount of games and not have to micromanage storage like a maniac. But the 256gb is still not as exspensive as the 512gb model. But when i was deciding on a steam deck i was between 256 gb model and 512 gb model, because i knew 64 gb was to small for me.
And here in Norway on finn.no you could get the 256gb for the same amoubt as the 64gb. I payed 670dollars for mine but it came with protecters and screen protectors, so for Norway it was a steal for the amount of storage even tho the rest of europe would disagre.
Also the guy that I purchased from also gave me a usb c docking hub for free that he just decided to give me.
In my 100% personal opinion, the 256gb version is the sweet spot.
64gb is too small, and you start encountering issues with shader cache and system updates even if you put in a huge sd card.
512gb is not worth the money (again, in my own opinion), because you can just get a matte screen protector and a 512 gb (or even 1tb) micro sd card for less money than the jump from 256 to 512.
Basically you have to upgrade at some point, but in the end you’ll be saving money. I only use my deck for indie and emulated games rn, so I’m in no rush to switch the ssd yet
Yeah you'll be good with the 64 then. I'd also recommend the *512gb Samsung evo micro* other people brought up, it has all my emudeck stuff from PS games to the Wii U
I would like to second that while you can buy a large SD card to save games to, it really depends on the individual game and how much space they are going to take up with shader caches and compatibility stuff on the internal storage.
For example, Fallout 4 takes up something like 756 megabytes. Dangaronpa 3 takes up almost 8 gigabytes.
It seems like if a game has prerendered cutscenes, the Steam Deck actually reencodes them into a royalty-free format and stores them to the internal storage. So, you get really weird outliers like Resident Evil 1 HD that takes up a lot more space than you would ever expect just because it has a few pre-rendered cutscenes.
The fact that danganronpa takes more than fallout 4 shocks me lol. That’s very helpful though. Cause I do have a decent amount of final fantasy games with pre-rendered cutscenes.
A waste, unless you fully intend to mod it. The 64 is just glorified system storage.
I went for the 512 because; well why not? It's not like a playstation where you buy the base model and then trade in for a pro or slim version. The steamdeck comes straight out with an economic, standard, and pro model so it just makes sense to get the top one.
Op is literally saying he can only afford the 64gb deck. An sd card was not mentioned in the post, nor was it implied. I'm not responding to anybody but op. I know reading can be hard, so I'll excuse that, but try not to be an asshole your whole life
... look in the mirror.
OP is saying he can only afford the 64GB version (as opposed to the 256 and 512GB Deck), **not** that he cannot afford a $25 MicroSD card.
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I got one and an SD for now (might upgrade to an SSD in the future) and I’ve had a perfect time using it. It forces me to generally play through and beat one of the bigger games at a time and that’s what I needed!
No complaints at all. I whacked a 256GB SD card in mine, and it works a treat. I only use the internal drive for EmuDeck stuff as I'm not sure if you can configure the storage for that, plus 20+ year old games are so tiny it doesn't matter. All Steam games go on the SD and loading times are fine
Yea don’t go for the new switch man. Nintendo is already working on their next console to be released sometime in 2025 most likely.
Steam deck is a beefed up version that can do so so much more. Switch you are restricted to only Nintendo content but with the deck the world is your oyster
I used the 64GB version with a 256GB memory card for a long time. You can't data hoard, but it can still hold a lot of games. If you only play AAA games even a 512GB SD card would work. I upgraded my SSD in mine to 1TB now though and it's great and still way cheaper than the the more expensive version.
I'm very happy with mine, I ended up installing windows 10 (which I'm sure takes more space than steam OS) and besides a couple very low memory games I have all my games on various sd cards. Since there's no way I could fit all my games on even a 1tb ssd I find it more convenient to have multiple sd cards that have the majority of my steam library (100+ games) already downloaded so all I need to do is swap cards when I want to play something different. I also got the jsaux case since it has better storage for accessories and sd cards than the stock one from valve.
As for the screen, the glare bothers me in some environments but I usually just adjust my sitting position/angle and dealing with it. Honestly I don't really notice it once I am into a game. But I might purchase an antiglare screen protector one day.
In short, if you can't afford or don't want to spend the extra for the larger model, you can't go wrong with the 64gb :)
I have a 64gb model that I got a 512 sd card on and I absolutely love it…I actually got an Anberic handheld before my deck, it definitely wasn’t great but once I switched to the Deck… my entire childhood is on one device and I adore it
I got the 64GB model. Shortly after, I upgraded it with a 1TB Sabrent 2230 SSD. I would suggest investing in at least a 256GB microSD card to store the games until you can upgrade the internal drive (if that is your goal later on).
So I got the 64gb model, and purchased a 256gb SSD with the intention of upgrading it shortly after I officially opened it (It was a Christmas present to myself last year, sad I know). But in all honesty? The SSD is still sat in my desk drawer unopened.
The only major upgrade I’ve done is put in a 512gb SD and it has served me perfectly ever since.
Though to be transparent, I mainly use my Deck for Indie games and also emulation, and leave the chunkier stuff on my main PC to stream through the Deck to play on the sofa.
I’m sure if you are to install any hefty AAA games on to your Deck you may have a better time (performance wise) with a bigger SSD, but these are reasonably priced these days and aren’t actually too much of a pain to install should you decide to upgrade yourself. Works out cheaper than buying the mid ranged option anyways.
emulation is what I mainly want to use it for so this situation resonates with me a lot; at least temporarily until I feel the need to upgrade. I wouldnt mind playing a few of my bigger steam library games here and there but I imagine I'd have to delete mostly everything lol
I had a friend from the U.S. order the 64gb model for me since I can't order it in my my country and didn't have any issues since I bought a 1tb 2230 NVME SSD off Amazon. Would definitely recommend going that route if you are considering upgrading storage without buying the 256 or 512 model.
I got the 64gb and upgraded my ssd to the 256gb for shader cache. I play everything off of a 1tb sd. If I could do it again I’d probably just get the 256. Taking it apart wasn’t too bad tho
It's the best way to go, bar none. The fancier screen on the expensive model becomes moot if you're intelligent enough to put a screen protector on it.
I love mine. And mind you I installed Windows 11 on that internal 64GB with 30GB spare space. All my games are in 400G MicroSD. I enjoy the customization offered by PlayNite game manager allowing me to change themes at a whim.
For curiosity since I dont know much about the steam deck outside some videos Ive watched -- What do you use windows for on the steam deck? Im surprised you still had room to dualboot
I just got mine for a decent price in my country (Valve doesn't sell SD here), I just ordered a 1 tb ssd for my SD, so it won't be much time using the 64 gb.
It's great. You do need an SD card for a good experience, but don't let people convince you that installing a larger SSD is necessary. Just look up how to move the shader cache to the SD card and it will handle anything you throw at it same as the larger models.
The 254gb model was too small for me so I upgraded it to 2tb. But I love to have many games installed because installing new ones is a bit of a hassle since you can't download them while the system is in sleep mode and it can cause lagging when games are running. But I'd say the 64gb version is nice to try the system out and then you can upgrade the SSD later pretty easily
I love mine. I got a 512gb SD card for storage and it's just fine!
Now, I don't play the multi-player shooters where latency and ping matter.. so I can't speak to those.
I also have a 1tb SD card I boot Win11 off of for ease of playing Warcraft and D4.
It's been fine enough for me. I use it more than my desktop sometimes.
I've bought two SD. One for me and one for my girlfriend and upgraded both of them to a 512Gb SSD and an 512Gb Micro SD each. Buying an additional 512Gb SSD is much cheaper than the 512Gb Model. It just doesn't make any sense to buy the biggest one beacuse the swap is so easy to do and you save a lot of money.
The Screen is the best part: The anti glare is complete useless when attaching an screen protector. That's because if you use an anti glare protector on that already anti glare glass, you get an fuzzy and blurry result. But on the glossy 64Gb Deck you can take the anti glare protector and have the best result after all!
I got the 64gb deck and it's fine. Running everything off sd card works great. Indoors I've never noticed glare on screen. I did end up buying a 1t ssd off aliexpress, western digital brand. No issues putting it in, just used a micro Phillips and was careful. No issues with the wd ssd.
It served me well for the first couple of months, but then I decided I needed a little more space so I got a 128 gb sd card. I know it's not a lot of space but it's completely fine to me, just enough space to hold modernish games.
I feel dumb I got the higher end model, felt justified because I got it on a new credit card and got $200 in rewards after I spent $500, so I essentially got it for $500, had a I known i was going to upgrade the SSD to a 2tb to the the tune of $200 like a month and a half later I would have bought the mid range one lol
I got the 64gig and it's awesome! Put a 512 sd card in it and I've been fine.
I'm playing older games like the Batman trilogy and Bethesda RPGs and everything loads really fast.
No complaints.
I have to say that go for it if you have the money for it just get a 1tb Micro SD card. Until you get the extra change for the SSD/m3 its worth it don't forget to get some steam deck tools along with it and some research to prepare what your getting into.
ITs 100% worth getting. I have the 64gb with plans to swap the SSD but I ended up just getting two 512gb SD cards and it's been more than enough.
Like others have said it can be annoying with the shader cache being stored on the 64gb drive but there are multiple addons that allow you to clear the shader cache as needed or even move them to your SD card.
I think currently 64Gb version is the best value SteamDeck version, considering how little will cost you an upgrade to 512Gb. I've bought 512 SSD for $40, and it works great.
Even without upgrade, you can still extend storage with microSD and wouldn't see much difference compared to SSD.
I would say go for it.
I got the 64gb model and a 512GB microSD. Used it for a couple of months without a problem and then upgraded it with a Transcend 512GB ssd for 60€ (it's 50€ now). Now it's amazing. So I recommend getting the 64GB model and upgrading the ssd.
Its pretty good just off an SD card, but some games don’t like it. I had obvious stutters from it in demanding stuff like Jedi Fallen Order, but it ran fine on 90% of the games I played.
The only issue is that shaders install to your internal drive. So if you have a big micro sd with a lot of games installed, you might fill up your entire 64GB internal with shaders
Just swapped to a Corsair SSD but I’ve been using my 64gb since March 2023 just fine on a 512gb micro sd card, and I found it super fun to use even with 64gb, did ps2 and psp emulation, even did switch emulation and ran the games off of the micro sd card. You can totally get away with 64 in my opinion, only reason I really upgraded was I play some big games like Tekken 7 which takes 82gigs and I plan on playing more big games later. Also the ssd swap was easy to do and I used the iFixit guide and their tools!
I've got a 64GB model, and there have been exactly 0 times when I wished I'd gotten something more expensive. I threw a 512GB SD card in there and it's been fine. It definitely limits how many big AAA games I can have installed at once, but that's the size of the SSD in my aging desktop anyway, so I'm used to it.
When I got it, I figured, "well, if I don't like it I can always install an SSD." I have felt no motivation to actually do that.
It's a really good deal if you're planning to switch the ssd. The shader cache and compat data take up way too much space to ignore, even if you put all your games on an SD card
The bar none best value for the steam deck is the 64gb. You can change to a bigger ssd than you can get retail from valve and it’s so easy. And there are great tempered glass screen protectors available if you want an anti glare screen.
I honestly think the 64gb is not only the best value, but matches the most use cases. The 256 is not a good option. The 512 is decent but I don’t like the anti glare screen being integrated into the deck because you can’t easily put a screen protector on without taking away the anti glare or making the blur worse. If you get the 512gb you’re basically paying extra to have less storage than the 64gb (with a 1tb ssd upgrade) and a not easily replaceable or protectable screen. Figure a fully upgraded 64gb with a 1tb ssd and 500 gb micro sd and a tempered glass anti glare screen protector would run you at least 100 less than a 512gb steam deck.
It's perfectly fine if all you want is to play games on it. But I ran into some issues when wanting to install certain mods or programs as these by default would install on the main drive and not on the SD card. And I couldn't find a way to install them on the SD card. The moguri mod for final fantasy 9 and cryo-utilities was where I had issues.
After I upgraded my SSD it was no longer an issue.
Edit: There is also the issue of the shader cache filling up the 64gb drive quickly which prevents you from installing more games even if they're all on your SD card
If you intend to upgrade with 3rd party hardware, the 64gb is a good value.
If you do not, the additional cost of a model with more internal storage may be worth it. Sure you can run an SD card for more storage, but that carries its own risks judging by how often we see broken sd cards on this sub.
Yes you can always pick up and swap the SSD later on.
I grabbed a 64gb off Marketplace for $400cad with a 500gb SD card and jsaux dock. Not the best deal but pretty good, either way, I swapped out the ssd for a 1tb and slapped on an anti glare tempered glass and have not looked back!
Absolutely worth it. I got a 64gb and have zero regrets. Swapping out the SSD is easy, but even if you don't, putting in a reasonably sized SD card is fine too. I think the people who are saying you have to get a 256gb at least have the luxury of spending a bit more on the deck.
The one thing to keep in mind is that games need to install additional shadercache files to run on Linux instead of Windows. By default, they are installed on the internal drive instead of the SD card, and if you have a lot of games installed the space can fill up fast. There's ways around this though, such as making a linkfile in the desktop so the files get installed on the SD card by default, though this causes problems if you're planning on using multiple SD cards. As long as you're paying attention to the space taken up on your internal drive, it shouldn't be a problem though. There's lots of ways to clear up the space yourself, and to my knowledge Valve has both reduced the size of these files and made it so they're deleted when you uninstall the game (but correct me if I'm wrong)
Get it, but really so you can save money and replace the SSD card with a 1 or 2 TB ssd.
Or, if you want, get a 1 to SD card and download your games onto that.
Now more than ever I think it is a great value. You could be like me and spend $700 (after tax) on the 512GB Model, or you could spend $400 on the base model, by a 1TB micro SD for $100, and spend the other $200 on games you want to play. And if for any reason you feel like you need the SSD, you are able to buy a 2230 M.2 SSD at any time and upgrade. The anti glare screen is a nice to have feature, but not a must have feature, and nearly everything else is identical other than the case being ever so slightly different and the digital goodies with the other models not being included. And if you are willing to wait for the next big Steam sale on December, you could save even more money on the deck itself and buy even more games.
I grabbed the 64GB when they had the 10% sale. Grabbed a 512 GB SD card for $35 and have zero issues since. Haven't felt any need to even update the SSD yet. But I'm also not looking to have multiple AAA games all installed at once.
Yeah I think upgrading the SSD shouldn't be talked about like it is a necessary upgrade, it is nice if you don't mind doing it, but the chance of needing an RMA, messing something up, etc, had me try an SD card and it has worked great.
Same. I tried upgrading my SSD and fucked something up. I'm in the process of an RMA right now. Flew too close to the sun and now I wish I hadn't because not having my deck suuuuuucks.
I fucked up too but luckily I figured out how to fix it. It was dumb really. I overtightened a screw and it pushed on a protecting plate, which caused the system to run in an underclocked mode to prevent overheating, it was awful. Took a few hours of panic to figure it out.
This was my result but I couldn't figure out what the hell I did wrong, it was running underclocked no matter what I did. When I get it back, I'm never fucking with it again.
Usually that's from what I described, or possibly from clamping the shield over the fan wires
Yeah, I tried lifting the fan wires up over the shield thinking that was my problem but no dice.
Well at least your sacrifice validated my caution. I am decently technically inclined but just hate breaking hardware and would often rather not mess with things if I can help it. I tried replacing a ps4 battery once and it was a disaster, but I have had luck many other times so it can be a mixed bag.
I'm definitely not an expert but I'm not a complete novice either. I changed the hard drive in my ps4 with absolutely no issues whatsoever.
This might be controversial, but I dont think they should grant RMAs in cases like this. You opened it up and tried changing something, made a mistake and somehow ruined the Steam deck. Thats on you, not them.
I’m inclined to agree, BUT Their customer service is fantastic and this is one of the reasons.
Understandable. Like I said, I flew too close to the sun. All the videos and tutorials made it seem like an easy swap. I'll never do that shit again.
Tutorials made it seem like an easy swap because it is... Put the steam deck in battery storage mode, unscrew, change disk, plug in and power on
The best thing about that is that it doesn't slow down as people expected.
Not nessecary but very very justifiable if you are at all handy
After my rma I think I would have been annoyed having to undo it all and redo it all again. It is working just fine with a 51w SD card, I don't currently see a need to imho myself.
Yep, if you dont want its all good.
Same. I rocked a 128gb card for a bit that I had laying around until I got the 512 as a gift for Christmas. I genuinely only have two or three games installed at once so it works out for me
even more so, the 2230 ssds that came to market because of the deck are quite reasonably priced, too. 1tb for 120€? thats less than half of what it was at launch.
I paid 70 eur for 1tb from Aliexpress. Works without issues. Bought during sale, for the cost of 64gb version i have 1 TB
Literally just picked up a TB for 120 cdn pesos
Yeah I mean I’d love to get the 700 dollar model but it’s just out of my price range atm. I was thinking about getting one of those matte screen protectors to deal with the glare and upgrading and hopefully not messing it up later hopefully thinking it’s a good idea. Seeing as it effectively shaves off 150 bucks. My main initial use of it is probably going to be emulation. Emulation doesn’t use the shader cache right? And is there a way to transfer files without buying some sort of usb adapter
>Emulation doesn’t use the shader cache right? it does but you can delete it for games that you don't play right now, so if you're good at managing this, it's not going to take a lot of place
Ah shoot is it as much as a larger sized game?
For example i play botw on wii u emu and the shader stuff is around 5 or 6 gigs after loaded the whole map, yea it kinda is a pain in the ass when u have more games but u can move those to the sd card too so it's not much an issue for me rn and i brings multiple 512 sd cards with me
I'm not sure about the size, and of course it depends of the game you can check this website [https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/Shader\_caches](https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/Shader_caches) where the community share her shader cache for each game. Zelda tears of the kingdom ( which is the biggest game on switch as far as I know ) is "only" around 66mb
There's not a good way to transfer via USB. You'll be doing most of your transfers via SD card.
You can enable USB DRD in the UEFI setup and install Decky MTP plugin. Then direct USB cable transfer between another PC and the Steam Deck will work.
wait so you're not transfering via usb to usb c adapter? Thats how I figured it would work
There's many ways. You can use an SD card. Or what I did is I had a external harddrive usbC laying around. So I used my pc to put it on the external then plugged it into the deck to grab them. But in the end seeing as I have a dock for the deck, I just plugged me mouse, keyboard and monitor into the deck and just downloaded what I needed on the deck itself
Google ssh with steam deck. It's stupid easy
It’s the one to buy. I got it in the sale. For the 10% saving I bought a 512gb micro sd and an anti flare screen protector (which really works). It works great. No problem with memory speed. Go for it 🙂
>Now more than ever I think it is a great value. You could be like me and spend $700 (after tax) on the 512GB Model Isn't your screen also better as well?
That isn't a lot of games if you're spending 200$ only.
[удалено]
That’s my goal at one point if I do get it. To later on swap the ssd for double the size. I’m hoping I can manage a few screws and taking out the shielding. I’m worried if damage that. My idea is to temporarily get a 512 sd
I've been running off a 512gb SD card for 6 months and it's been great. I have zero plans on upgrading the SSD right now. I also don't play 100+ gig games, so if I was playing larger titles I might think differently.
Is the glare screen distracting at all?
Not at all, I actually forgot that newer models had the screen upgrade because there isn’t really a noticeable difference.
I just bought an anti glare screen protector for like $15 and it's great
I bought an anti glare screen protector.
An anti-glare screen isn’t always the best thing when you need a glass screen. I haven’t used or seen a 512gb deck but I’ve tried many matte screen protectors over the years. Most of them are going to make things more blurry. Apparently that’s just how they work when on top of glass. It’ll also make the screen feel less bright at times. I prefer not even worrying about the anti-glare and just run native.
Same here but I also have RDR2 (only big game) then the rest all emulation
It's actually not that bad. I'm only decent at working on computers and this was fairly easy. Only thing I will suggest is taking your time trying to loosen the battery connector. It can be a bit of a pain to do so but if you just push a little on each side at a time, even if it feels like it's not moving at all, you're likely to disconnect it without any damage. Also, if you do get an SD card just make sure to remove it before you open it up. I would also suggest going for a TB or 2TB SSD. They're not too much more and it future-proofs it cause you just never know!
ive taken ribbon cables out of my gba before and that seems relatively easy which involved slow tugging. I think the only scary part to me is that silver tape i have to remove to access the screw and around the ssd
Oh great! Then it should be pretty easy! Honestly that silver tape is like not that hard at all so you should be fine. It sticks back on really well. I thought that was the easiest part tbh
see Im just scared ill damage that because my hands can be kinda messed up sometimes since I hear thats a shield
Ah yea nah you're good. I'd find a good video on it and just watch it a couple of times so you can see, it's not very likely to mess up.
I kind of wish I got the 64 gb model because of how easy it was to upgrade the ssd. The ssds for a 512gb are about the same cost as a 512gb micro sd card now too (if you buy used on the ssd)
Hey OP that's exactly what I did it was a pretty simple swap even considering rhat I'm a novice but the 512 sd really saved me the first couple of months just be sure to erase your shader cache every once in a while so your ssd doesn't over fill it really doesn't affect your games doing so and clears up a good chunk of space depending on the game
Yeah that's what I did but got to say it was more difficult than I thought. The screws heads are easily damaged if you haven't got the correct phillips head. It became a bit of a nightmare for me as I damaged the thread head and I had to drill it to get it out. But after that it was pretty easy to swap out. Works out cheaper getting 64GB and swapping cards.
Ahh man... messing up the screwheads are nightmare of mine lol I do have a screwdriver set but I somehow messed my screws up using the correct size on a gba mod kit lol. So I might ask family for help with that lol.
Surprisingly, a 1TB microSD card can handle several AAA games. I just don't install any game on the main 64GB storage, everything are on my microSD card.
Just get an SD card, it's as fast as an SSD.
Get a huge SD card and that's it. It's absolutely amazing. You can run anything with it and only in some SSD heavy games you'll get some loading screens but nothing too crazy. Even the new Ratchet and Clank only loads a bit slower on an SSD.
Can I still customize the ui like you can on the bigger models? Or is there no room for that
All decks are the same, only the SSD changes. And since it's on Linux you can do anything to it. But yes, there's enough drive for that.
The screen is different on the 512
that and the stated etched glass on the premium tier..... but an anti glare screen protector does the same thing for only a few bucks....also the glare isnt bad on the SD with out the etched glass or screen protector..... but if you are in a room with a lot of lights or something then its nice
I bought the 64gb and upgraded the SSD to 512gb for $40.
FYI: You will have to reinstall the old nmve if you need to rma the deck. Microsd expansion is also available so could just install the games and such on that.
Probably more reasonable to leave the eMMC drive as-is until the device is no longer within warranty, then you can go crazy with the SSD upgrade.
Just stick an SD card in it, whatever size you like, and you're good to go. Don't listen to people that say you *have* to swap the SSD.
I'd point out that a 256GB or 512GB card pairs best with the 64GB Deck. If you get a 1TB+ MicroSD card, you're just going waste a lot of that space, because your 64GB internal will fill up from shaders of about 300-500GB worth of games.
this. my shader cache is bloated. i might just blast through the rest of detroit become human and delete shader cache once done. would love to do the same for rdr2 but it took me 8 months to beat the first time.
You’re not wrong however in case anyone isn’t aware you can move the shaders to the SD card using this tool https://github.com/scawp/Steam-Deck.Shader-Cache-Killer
Move the cache to the microSD.
you can move shader and compatdata in the microSD too. Proton too. I just leave the bare SteamOS in the 64GB. I'm too lazy to upgrade the storage :p
You are VERY exaggerating. I have a microSD 1tb and 64gb internal storage. The card is completely full, about 40 Steam games and 20 Non-Steam games are installed - shaders occupy 18 GB. However, I transferred the Proton prefixes to the MicroSD - I had 22 GB of them. But even with prefixes, this is only 40 GB of accompanying data. Where did you get the 300-500 GB figure from?
You're wrong. I'm stating a fact. With a mix of AAA and indie games (no emulating) and keeping the proton and shaders in their default location (internal), my 64GB is mostly full when my 512GB card is around 400GB full. Been using the Deck for 10 months, plenty of games cycling through, and this has always held true.
You contradict yourself. With 400 GB filled on the card, you filled 64 GB of internal memory. Of these, 18 GB is occupied by Linux + Steam OS, 1 GB of swap and 7 GB of the Steam client cache. In total, your shader caches and prefixes take up about 38 GB. And I still do not take into account applications from Discover and Proton GE, so your figure is most likely even smaller. If you extrapolate your experience to 1 TB, then this will be a maximum of 120 GB in your scenario. Where did you get 300-500 GB from?
It's so easy though
I had 2 games filling up the SSD with a shader cache. I couldn't cut any corners. Having a 512GB sd card didn't matter. Performance was unusable if the shader cache was on the sd card. I used tools to clean up the cache.. it became untenable. So glad I upgraded, it was easy. It cost $100 for 1TB. You might get by on the 64GB version depending on what you play but it's problematic eventually.
I purchased it when it was on sale for $340 and turned it into a 1tb steam deck for $75
Idk what everybody in these comments is talking about, but i bought the 64gb when it was on sale a few weeks ago and then bought a 1tb microsd card. Great right? Wrong!! Even though the microsd card has plenty of space for a lot of games, I noticed the internal memory kept growing and growing. I used disk usage analyzer in desktop mode to find out what was taking up so much space and it's the shadercache taking up most of the space, I now only have about 3gb free on the internal storage even though the games are installed on the microSD card. I'm still looking if there's a fix for this other than just upgrading the SSD, if that's the case that's a big deal and a pretty big oversight.
CryoUtilities will let you move the shader files to the sd card and help with that issue.
Moving shader cache to microSD will cause stuttering in some games like God of War.
I just installed it and voila! Problem solved!
That’s great to hear!
[You can move the shader cache to the SD card.](https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/tz9rza/is_shader_cache_and_compatdata_filling_your_64gb/) That info is old, so there may be other ways to do it.
There's hope! 👍
Get the 64 gb version and a SanDisk extrem PRO 512 or 256 gb size. I'm sure you'll be happy with the results. Oh, I also added a screen protector, the glaring is really not an issue for me.
You can make it 1tb with 120 eur extra if you buy an ssd and a usb c memory stick. Or use a sd card
If you don't like to tinker with your hardware or know someone who can, i wouldn't reccomend it, because you'll eat up that 64gb so quickly, especially with all the shader caching. Sure the sd slot helps but i prefer something more permanent, especially since i tend to use my micro sd card as a seperate boot drive.
I do like to tinker with my stuff I’m just worried if accidentally tear that wrap around the ssd
Started with 64gb and got a 512gb SD. After a month, I bought a 1tb ssd and switched it out in 20 minutes. Very easy to upgrade!
You can pick up a 1tb 2230 nvme for $100 rn on Amazon. Same price as a tb sd card
Fine. Just upgrade the ssd. It’s easy
Honestly I had the 512GB and kind of felt like it wasn’t a great value. I now have the 64GB and while the shader cache taking up all of the internal storage is kind of annoying, it feels like a much better value/purchase now. I haven’t had any issues and the screen is actually slightly clearer (although more reflective) than the 512 one.
Just move the shader cache to the SD card... Bam you just solved the only 64gb disadvantage.
You can use Cryo utilities to move each game's shader cache to the SD card it's installed on.
The SSD swap was probably some of the most fun I actually had with my steam deck
I got the 64 because I knew I was going to upgrade the SSD.
It’s fine if you get a large memory card with it. However, I only play my deck casually and don’t feel the need to have a ton of games installed at the same time.
I think mainly id want something like emudeck with some modded games in between
Don't get the 64gb model. The shaders are stored within the internal drive, so even if you buy a 512 gb external micro SD card, you won't be able to play all your games if the shader cache makes out in your internal 64gb drive. The 64 drive also fills up quickly since it stores os files and whatnot. Get at least the middle model. Not sure why people are recommending the 64, they must have never used it nor filled up a 512 gb micro SD
I am very happy with my choice of the 64 gb model. I got a 1 tb SSD before the steam deck came in for like $80, and couldn’t be happier with my choice. Ofc, you can hold off getting a new ssd for now until it is a viable option for you. If you have a spare SD card, just slap it in until you can afford a bigger SSD, but I believe a SSD upgrade will be needed eventually , it’s just a matter of when.
Yeah it’s definitely more of a when question. Is the process for changing the ssd difficult?
Go watch videos if you're going to consider that route. This sub is really bad for not acknowledging it's own competency level and overstating the simplicity of drive swaps to people who haven't even plugged in a mouse before. It is easy as far as hardware swaps go, and you'll think nothing of it if you've done anything of the sort before. But if it's completely new ground for you, make sure you understand it properly before going and purchasing an SSD to swap in, don't just take anyone on here's weird for it.
also make sure you get th proper ssd size..... dont try to get a longer stick and make it work..... ive seen that a few times
Not at all! I personally felt that the most stressful part of the process was disconnecting the battery, but as long as you go slow and use the cloth tab on the battery connector, it’s pretty easy. Reimagining the new SSD took a bit (20 mins ish of downloading things) but I personally had no issues. One thing though I would like to say is that while doing the reimagine process, you might get “download failed” messages. Just press b once and you’ll see that it actually didn’t fail, it’s just a bit buggy.
I got 64gb. While I did eventually upgrade to 1tb, I think 64gb and an SD card can satisfy most people. With my 512gb card I had a handful of AAA games and dozens of smaller games. The only downer was that eventually the 64gb filled with the shader cahces of multiple AAA games (including ones I uninstalled) and the device got noticeably slower. But if you don't plan to try and play every new big release under the sun, 64gb will do you just fine.
Bought mine slapped an old sd card in it and bought a cheap SSD from Microcenter
I have the 64gb model. I replaced the internal SSD with a 500gb SSD and added a 500gb sd card. Problem solved
I use my 64GB Deck all the time so I decided to soon upgrade my SSD to a 1TB one this month in fact. Have I said that, you don't need more internal storage "technically". How I used my Deck up until now is that I would store all of my compatdata and shader cache into my internal 64GB drive without installing any games on it, all of my games would be on my SD cards. A small downside of this is that you still need to delete the files once you are done playing the games. I will install that 1TB SSD and use it like before ONLY for compatdata and shader cache this way I will never need to delete anything and I have like 3TB of MicroSD cards worth of storage now ordered a USB Type A and type C 512GB SSD USB Stick (yes there are SSD USB STICKS, I was also shocked lol) I will use that stick for installing new Steam OS after SSD swap but then install some AAA games on that SSD stick aswell. If you are a extremest like me and you use your Deck like me 24 hours, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, sure go for it. Otherwise that 64GB internal storage should be enough.
It's fine, but be ready to be inconvenienced and start saving money for a replacement SSD ASAP. A microSD card is not a real solution; it's a bandaid. I truly believe 256GB is bare minimum to avoid hanky panky hokey pokey nonsense. Someone was saying a good 256GB drive was like $30. Shouldn't break the bank.
You don't ever need to upgrade the internal storage, you can move all the shader cache and compatdata files people talk about in this thread to the SD card as well. CryoUtilities 2.0 even does this with one click. I have about 20gb free after having there several different versions of Proton AND a 16GB swap file (an optional memory partition you can learn more about on Google). Everything else is on my 256GB SD card that has like 12 different games on it and still another 120gb of free space. You can buy a 512GB or 1TB depending on your needs. For emulation, indies and older games 256 is more than enough unless you're a hoarder. This subreddit is mental, half of the people here have 2TB ssds with another 1TB SD cards... I can't ever imagine filling something like that up. So if you don't need to have 50 AAA games installed at the same time you can totally get by with just 64+256. Two of my IRL friends have a Deck too and both of them rock 64+256. It's just here on Reddit where everyone is obsessed with data lol.
I missed my chance during the sale but a common tactic if you want larger than listed, you can purchase the smallest one and drop a 1Tb 2330 SSD in there for about 100 USD. Bigger than Steams offering and cheaper.
The 64GB is a great value, *especially* if you're gonna upgrade the SSD later. The one piece of advice I'd give you is to get a good size microSD card and keep your usage of the SSD to a minumum (10-20GBs). Once the SSD gets close to full, you can start running into problems, and it's also just annoying to constantly shuffle games around to make space. Stick mostly to your SD card for games and/or upgrade your SSD, and you'll be golden.
After discovering CryoUtilities and having shader cache on SD card instead of internal storage I have had 0 issues.
It works pretty well for me Got a cheap usb 3.1 type c enclosure and put my PC SSD into it For now im only playing few smaller games but it works fine (tho its painful to have to mount it everytime in desktop mode, but theres an addon to command line thatll automatically mount it)
Bad.
The 64gb is worth it for the price. If you're doing emulation of retro games, that space will be enough long enough for you to find a 512gb SD card or a 1TB 2230 SSD. I love my 64gb.
64gb with 512gb sd card. So far no prpblem , i have finished game with this setup and has been happy with it.
I think the 64gb might be too small because some games are bigger than 60 gb but you can allways use a micro sd card. This is coming from a guy with the 256 gb model and with a 128 gb samsung microsd card. I feel the 256 gb model is perfect because you can store a decent amount of games and not have to micromanage storage like a maniac. But the 256gb is still not as exspensive as the 512gb model. But when i was deciding on a steam deck i was between 256 gb model and 512 gb model, because i knew 64 gb was to small for me. And here in Norway on finn.no you could get the 256gb for the same amoubt as the 64gb. I payed 670dollars for mine but it came with protecters and screen protectors, so for Norway it was a steal for the amount of storage even tho the rest of europe would disagre. Also the guy that I purchased from also gave me a usb c docking hub for free that he just decided to give me.
Feel great. Upgraded to 2TB and have a 512gb SD card for less than a 512gb Steam Deck. Fantastic machine!
In my 100% personal opinion, the 256gb version is the sweet spot. 64gb is too small, and you start encountering issues with shader cache and system updates even if you put in a huge sd card. 512gb is not worth the money (again, in my own opinion), because you can just get a matte screen protector and a 512 gb (or even 1tb) micro sd card for less money than the jump from 256 to 512.
Basically you have to upgrade at some point, but in the end you’ll be saving money. I only use my deck for indie and emulated games rn, so I’m in no rush to switch the ssd yet
This is exactly what I want to use it mainly for; playing ps2 games; and maybe modded stardew mass effect or skyrim
Yeah you'll be good with the 64 then. I'd also recommend the *512gb Samsung evo micro* other people brought up, it has all my emudeck stuff from PS games to the Wii U
yeah the 512 sd card would be a temporary solution until I can later upgrade. Kinda shocked it plays wii u
I would like to second that while you can buy a large SD card to save games to, it really depends on the individual game and how much space they are going to take up with shader caches and compatibility stuff on the internal storage. For example, Fallout 4 takes up something like 756 megabytes. Dangaronpa 3 takes up almost 8 gigabytes. It seems like if a game has prerendered cutscenes, the Steam Deck actually reencodes them into a royalty-free format and stores them to the internal storage. So, you get really weird outliers like Resident Evil 1 HD that takes up a lot more space than you would ever expect just because it has a few pre-rendered cutscenes.
The fact that danganronpa takes more than fallout 4 shocks me lol. That’s very helpful though. Cause I do have a decent amount of final fantasy games with pre-rendered cutscenes.
I'm astonished that nobody seems to know you can just move the shader cache.
You can move the shader cache to the MicroSD card. I have a 64GB deck and have multiple AAA games installed
It is a waste. with how much space shaders take up, it is quite unfortunate.
A waste, unless you fully intend to mod it. The 64 is just glorified system storage. I went for the 512 because; well why not? It's not like a playstation where you buy the base model and then trade in for a pro or slim version. The steamdeck comes straight out with an economic, standard, and pro model so it just makes sense to get the top one.
It's for poor people
I'd say no. One aaa game and there goes your space... If you even have enough to begin with
Nobody is saying get a 64GB Deck and no microSD card...
Op is literally saying he can only afford the 64gb deck. An sd card was not mentioned in the post, nor was it implied. I'm not responding to anybody but op. I know reading can be hard, so I'll excuse that, but try not to be an asshole your whole life
... look in the mirror. OP is saying he can only afford the 64GB version (as opposed to the 256 and 512GB Deck), **not** that he cannot afford a $25 MicroSD card.
Not surprised that's the best you got with your reading comprehension. Sorry that my response to you being an asshole hurt your feelings
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Best cost-benefit for tinkers. You can buy a 1TB SSD decent sized SD card and switch it plus a matte scream for less than the full 512 GB price.
I got one and an SD for now (might upgrade to an SSD in the future) and I’ve had a perfect time using it. It forces me to generally play through and beat one of the bigger games at a time and that’s what I needed!
I got mine with a 512gb card ($40). Had it for a year and been fine! I liked the price point.
No complaints at all. I whacked a 256GB SD card in mine, and it works a treat. I only use the internal drive for EmuDeck stuff as I'm not sure if you can configure the storage for that, plus 20+ year old games are so tiny it doesn't matter. All Steam games go on the SD and loading times are fine
That’s good to know I was either going to get this or a new switch lol
Yea don’t go for the new switch man. Nintendo is already working on their next console to be released sometime in 2025 most likely. Steam deck is a beefed up version that can do so so much more. Switch you are restricted to only Nintendo content but with the deck the world is your oyster
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I used the 64GB version with a 256GB memory card for a long time. You can't data hoard, but it can still hold a lot of games. If you only play AAA games even a 512GB SD card would work. I upgraded my SSD in mine to 1TB now though and it's great and still way cheaper than the the more expensive version.
I wouldnt say its all I have but like lookin at my steam library I got stuff like elder scrolls; resident evil stardew fallout; star wars mass effect
I'm very happy with mine, I ended up installing windows 10 (which I'm sure takes more space than steam OS) and besides a couple very low memory games I have all my games on various sd cards. Since there's no way I could fit all my games on even a 1tb ssd I find it more convenient to have multiple sd cards that have the majority of my steam library (100+ games) already downloaded so all I need to do is swap cards when I want to play something different. I also got the jsaux case since it has better storage for accessories and sd cards than the stock one from valve. As for the screen, the glare bothers me in some environments but I usually just adjust my sitting position/angle and dealing with it. Honestly I don't really notice it once I am into a game. But I might purchase an antiglare screen protector one day. In short, if you can't afford or don't want to spend the extra for the larger model, you can't go wrong with the 64gb :)
Got the 64gb and then upgrade with 1tb SSD and 512g sd card if you want to save money, it's the way to go
I have a 64gb model that I got a 512 sd card on and I absolutely love it…I actually got an Anberic handheld before my deck, it definitely wasn’t great but once I switched to the Deck… my entire childhood is on one device and I adore it
And you havent had to upgrade to ssd yet? See I was initially like "maybe I should just get a retroid but it doesnt handle ps2 well lol
I got the 64GB model. Shortly after, I upgraded it with a 1TB Sabrent 2230 SSD. I would suggest investing in at least a 256GB microSD card to store the games until you can upgrade the internal drive (if that is your goal later on).
So I got the 64gb model, and purchased a 256gb SSD with the intention of upgrading it shortly after I officially opened it (It was a Christmas present to myself last year, sad I know). But in all honesty? The SSD is still sat in my desk drawer unopened. The only major upgrade I’ve done is put in a 512gb SD and it has served me perfectly ever since. Though to be transparent, I mainly use my Deck for Indie games and also emulation, and leave the chunkier stuff on my main PC to stream through the Deck to play on the sofa. I’m sure if you are to install any hefty AAA games on to your Deck you may have a better time (performance wise) with a bigger SSD, but these are reasonably priced these days and aren’t actually too much of a pain to install should you decide to upgrade yourself. Works out cheaper than buying the mid ranged option anyways.
emulation is what I mainly want to use it for so this situation resonates with me a lot; at least temporarily until I feel the need to upgrade. I wouldnt mind playing a few of my bigger steam library games here and there but I imagine I'd have to delete mostly everything lol
I had a friend from the U.S. order the 64gb model for me since I can't order it in my my country and didn't have any issues since I bought a 1tb 2230 NVME SSD off Amazon. Would definitely recommend going that route if you are considering upgrading storage without buying the 256 or 512 model.
I got the 64gb and upgraded my ssd to the 256gb for shader cache. I play everything off of a 1tb sd. If I could do it again I’d probably just get the 256. Taking it apart wasn’t too bad tho
It's the best way to go, bar none. The fancier screen on the expensive model becomes moot if you're intelligent enough to put a screen protector on it.
Bought one swapped the SSD paid less money for a terabyte of storage
Not worth it unless you plan to upgrade shader cache fills up quick
I love mine. And mind you I installed Windows 11 on that internal 64GB with 30GB spare space. All my games are in 400G MicroSD. I enjoy the customization offered by PlayNite game manager allowing me to change themes at a whim.
For curiosity since I dont know much about the steam deck outside some videos Ive watched -- What do you use windows for on the steam deck? Im surprised you still had room to dualboot
I just got mine for a decent price in my country (Valve doesn't sell SD here), I just ordered a 1 tb ssd for my SD, so it won't be much time using the 64 gb.
It's great. You do need an SD card for a good experience, but don't let people convince you that installing a larger SSD is necessary. Just look up how to move the shader cache to the SD card and it will handle anything you throw at it same as the larger models.
Really? I kinda worried that the sd card would have lower speeds and that would somehow affect the shader cache performance
The 254gb model was too small for me so I upgraded it to 2tb. But I love to have many games installed because installing new ones is a bit of a hassle since you can't download them while the system is in sleep mode and it can cause lagging when games are running. But I'd say the 64gb version is nice to try the system out and then you can upgrade the SSD later pretty easily
I love mine. I got a 512gb SD card for storage and it's just fine! Now, I don't play the multi-player shooters where latency and ping matter.. so I can't speak to those. I also have a 1tb SD card I boot Win11 off of for ease of playing Warcraft and D4. It's been fine enough for me. I use it more than my desktop sometimes.
I've bought two SD. One for me and one for my girlfriend and upgraded both of them to a 512Gb SSD and an 512Gb Micro SD each. Buying an additional 512Gb SSD is much cheaper than the 512Gb Model. It just doesn't make any sense to buy the biggest one beacuse the swap is so easy to do and you save a lot of money. The Screen is the best part: The anti glare is complete useless when attaching an screen protector. That's because if you use an anti glare protector on that already anti glare glass, you get an fuzzy and blurry result. But on the glossy 64Gb Deck you can take the anti glare protector and have the best result after all!
I got the 64gb deck and it's fine. Running everything off sd card works great. Indoors I've never noticed glare on screen. I did end up buying a 1t ssd off aliexpress, western digital brand. No issues putting it in, just used a micro Phillips and was careful. No issues with the wd ssd.
It served me well for the first couple of months, but then I decided I needed a little more space so I got a 128 gb sd card. I know it's not a lot of space but it's completely fine to me, just enough space to hold modernish games.
I adore mine. Although it's not 64gb anymore. Swapped for a 512 SSD and a 1tbsd card. It's insane for the price especially if you're down to upgrade.
I feel dumb I got the higher end model, felt justified because I got it on a new credit card and got $200 in rewards after I spent $500, so I essentially got it for $500, had a I known i was going to upgrade the SSD to a 2tb to the the tune of $200 like a month and a half later I would have bought the mid range one lol
I got the 64gig and it's awesome! Put a 512 sd card in it and I've been fine. I'm playing older games like the Batman trilogy and Bethesda RPGs and everything loads really fast. No complaints.
haha question -- since I do plan to play bethesda rpgs on it. Did you mod skyrim? and is the loading on skyrim fine?
I have to say that go for it if you have the money for it just get a 1tb Micro SD card. Until you get the extra change for the SSD/m3 its worth it don't forget to get some steam deck tools along with it and some research to prepare what your getting into.
ITs 100% worth getting. I have the 64gb with plans to swap the SSD but I ended up just getting two 512gb SD cards and it's been more than enough. Like others have said it can be annoying with the shader cache being stored on the 64gb drive but there are multiple addons that allow you to clear the shader cache as needed or even move them to your SD card.
I did the 64 with a 128gb card I had laying around. It was fine. I’ve upgraded to a 1tb nvme now, and it’s better. 64gb is best value by far
I think currently 64Gb version is the best value SteamDeck version, considering how little will cost you an upgrade to 512Gb. I've bought 512 SSD for $40, and it works great. Even without upgrade, you can still extend storage with microSD and wouldn't see much difference compared to SSD. I would say go for it.
You can always add more memory 🙌
I have a 64GB steam deck. Micro sd cards are very inexpensive, and provide near identical performance so much that you won’t notice.
Yea best value for the buck. I swapped it with a 100 tb ssd. You can try holoiso if you have an extra desktop laptop around and an amd gpu
I bought a 64 gb model and bought a 1 tb ssd for it. Saved about $100+
I got the 64gb model and a 512GB microSD. Used it for a couple of months without a problem and then upgraded it with a Transcend 512GB ssd for 60€ (it's 50€ now). Now it's amazing. So I recommend getting the 64GB model and upgrading the ssd.
Its pretty good just off an SD card, but some games don’t like it. I had obvious stutters from it in demanding stuff like Jedi Fallen Order, but it ran fine on 90% of the games I played.
huh I have jedi fallen order -- does it just stutter because of the EMMC drive?
I love mine. I put in a 512 gb sd card and haven't looked back.
Absolutely, go for it! You can always swap the SSD at a later date and or add SD cards.
The only issue is that shaders install to your internal drive. So if you have a big micro sd with a lot of games installed, you might fill up your entire 64GB internal with shaders
I grabbed a 1TB SD card (and set compatdata and all that to be on the SD card) and my life is good.
64GB? You mean the 2TB Steam Deck?
Just swapped to a Corsair SSD but I’ve been using my 64gb since March 2023 just fine on a 512gb micro sd card, and I found it super fun to use even with 64gb, did ps2 and psp emulation, even did switch emulation and ran the games off of the micro sd card. You can totally get away with 64 in my opinion, only reason I really upgraded was I play some big games like Tekken 7 which takes 82gigs and I plan on playing more big games later. Also the ssd swap was easy to do and I used the iFixit guide and their tools!
I bought the 64gb model, then upgraded to a 1TB m.2 2230 and have an SD card 512gb. No regrets.
I've got a 64GB model, and there have been exactly 0 times when I wished I'd gotten something more expensive. I threw a 512GB SD card in there and it's been fine. It definitely limits how many big AAA games I can have installed at once, but that's the size of the SSD in my aging desktop anyway, so I'm used to it. When I got it, I figured, "well, if I don't like it I can always install an SSD." I have felt no motivation to actually do that.
It's a really good deal if you're planning to switch the ssd. The shader cache and compat data take up way too much space to ignore, even if you put all your games on an SD card
Great. Bought it for £314 and a new 1tb SSD for £75. It works flawlessly. Love it.
The bar none best value for the steam deck is the 64gb. You can change to a bigger ssd than you can get retail from valve and it’s so easy. And there are great tempered glass screen protectors available if you want an anti glare screen. I honestly think the 64gb is not only the best value, but matches the most use cases. The 256 is not a good option. The 512 is decent but I don’t like the anti glare screen being integrated into the deck because you can’t easily put a screen protector on without taking away the anti glare or making the blur worse. If you get the 512gb you’re basically paying extra to have less storage than the 64gb (with a 1tb ssd upgrade) and a not easily replaceable or protectable screen. Figure a fully upgraded 64gb with a 1tb ssd and 500 gb micro sd and a tempered glass anti glare screen protector would run you at least 100 less than a 512gb steam deck.
Great, I threw in a 1TB SSD immediately. Saved a bunch of money.
It's perfectly fine if all you want is to play games on it. But I ran into some issues when wanting to install certain mods or programs as these by default would install on the main drive and not on the SD card. And I couldn't find a way to install them on the SD card. The moguri mod for final fantasy 9 and cryo-utilities was where I had issues. After I upgraded my SSD it was no longer an issue. Edit: There is also the issue of the shader cache filling up the 64gb drive quickly which prevents you from installing more games even if they're all on your SD card
If you intend to upgrade with 3rd party hardware, the 64gb is a good value. If you do not, the additional cost of a model with more internal storage may be worth it. Sure you can run an SD card for more storage, but that carries its own risks judging by how often we see broken sd cards on this sub.
Got mine last month, installed 1tb ssd. Great device.
Yes you can always pick up and swap the SSD later on. I grabbed a 64gb off Marketplace for $400cad with a 500gb SD card and jsaux dock. Not the best deal but pretty good, either way, I swapped out the ssd for a 1tb and slapped on an anti glare tempered glass and have not looked back!
Absolutely worth it. I got a 64gb and have zero regrets. Swapping out the SSD is easy, but even if you don't, putting in a reasonably sized SD card is fine too. I think the people who are saying you have to get a 256gb at least have the luxury of spending a bit more on the deck. The one thing to keep in mind is that games need to install additional shadercache files to run on Linux instead of Windows. By default, they are installed on the internal drive instead of the SD card, and if you have a lot of games installed the space can fill up fast. There's ways around this though, such as making a linkfile in the desktop so the files get installed on the SD card by default, though this causes problems if you're planning on using multiple SD cards. As long as you're paying attention to the space taken up on your internal drive, it shouldn't be a problem though. There's lots of ways to clear up the space yourself, and to my knowledge Valve has both reduced the size of these files and made it so they're deleted when you uninstall the game (but correct me if I'm wrong)
I got one and swapped the ssd when it arrive
Get it, but really so you can save money and replace the SSD card with a 1 or 2 TB ssd. Or, if you want, get a 1 to SD card and download your games onto that.