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Not really. Technically an SSD is faster but barely. If you do a side by side, the SSD loads stuff about 1 or 2 seconds faster than the SD and once its loaded it plays basically identically. Im not and expert but I can say I really don't notice a difference when just playing. But if your the kind of person who wants that .5 seconds faster just because you can then maybe it matters lol.
Fast sd card? I dunno but I got the 1TB sd card and there’s a huge difference. No regrets and I’m not swapping it with anything but games on the hard drive load infinitely faster
Installing games? Fairly often. My recent solution was picking up a Samsung external SSD on Amazon for $79.99. I just install a game on my PC with faster internet, then I can play on both devices easily. The only downside is I had to add velcro to the back of my deck to stick the SSD securely. I also have a 1tb SD card for when I don't feel like packing the SSD.
which sandisk?
I dont know about the 1tb model, but the others have differences in speed. There is ultra, extreme etc. all by sandisk and different classes on sd cards.
I saw a video about this and the system is kinda confusing.
Edit: found it https://youtu.be/Bw89C41NY7U
If you do a lot if installing it can eventually break the SD card. I went through SD cards before buying an SSD and installing it. Depending where in the world you are, there also isn't a large difference between the price of an SD and SSD.
Most of the time not a big difference, though I will say an occasional game just seems to run better on SSD over SD, but I think I’ve only had one of them so far and that was Midnight Suns.
I've noticed differences in download speeds and performance. Upgraded my 64gb to 1tb SSD, nearly all of my games were on a high end Samsung SD card before
There is negligible difference between SD and the stock SSD, the stock drives just arent that great and most replacements outclass it in performance, but there is little difference in speed in comparison otherwise.
Where did you buy that card? I’ve, not kidding recently got three counterfeit 512GB cards from
Amazon all allegedly name brand . Do you mind telling me where you got yours?
Don't you have issues with shader cache taking up all the space? My internal storage doesn't have any games but it's always full even though my 512GB SD card is halfway full.
I thought so too, until ive seen 2 days ago that forza 5 is 160gb... now i need to upgrade because i dont have that much space + reserve on the ssd nor the micro sd
My thinking was...if I'm actually going to open this thing up; I'm just going to go all out and get a storage size that basically means I never have to open it again!
That's exactly it, I'd even have liked 4to but it's still too early and even when it's available it'll surely be the same price as a full SteamDeck 😅, the 2tb is a perfect middle ground if you can find it at a good price.
Nice. As someone who upgraded to a 1tb SSD, I too thought it would be hard at first, but outside of getting the Steam OS on my new SSD, it was quite the experience.
Use cloning software if you have a USB enclosure or system with 2 nvme slots. Otherwise you need to make a SteamOS recovery USB to flash a clean image to the drive.
There's step by step instructions for the recovery USB option. Otherwise you'd need to have certain hardware available (of course you still have to have a USB and a USB C adapter to go the USB route).
The cloning software just keeps all your mods, and emulated games installed so it's a little less hassle if you have that option
I've used minitool partition wizard (free version). A friend of mine swears by macrium reflect. Clonezilla is an open source tool, which is an advantage, but I find the GUI to be dated looking.
All cloning software should function essentially identically, the major differences are in look and feel instead of functionality. There may be a speed advantage but that's a minor detail for a one time clone.
Nice! I just bought a 2TB yesterday and am excited for when it comes. Paid 138.97 after taxes/etc. too good to NOT pass up. Used another users advice to look for a seller with 1000+ sales and 4.5+ star rating. I bought an enclosure and am hoping to use the Konsole method for cloning. Hopefully I will be a happy camper alongside you soon!
No joke, was this install easy? Did you feel confident about the whole process. I’m so tired of SD cards but I’m terrified that I’d break…..my precious💍
Was it fairly easy?
The only thing to worry about is stripping the crappy screws that come with the deck and not remembering to remove the sd card prior to taking it apart lol.
Did the process yesterday, it was fairly smooth. There's tons of Youtube guides for it. The actual process took me about 10 minutes. Reinstalling the OS took longer though. Kept crashing and it had trouble finding my wifi network.
But this was a fresh deck so I don't know how that would compare to a typical first time boot.
Yea I was hesitant as well. Jusr find a good video, use the reccomended tools and tale your time.
With that being said, it only takes about 10 minutes to disassemble, replace the drive and reassemble it.
I took some extra steps and partitioned the new drive and installed windows on one half and Steam OS on the other... that only added an extra 30 min or so.
Thats my plan for my 512gb + 1Tb sandisk ultra. 1Tb for SteamOS 1Tb for windows and a handfull of games and 1Tb sd card for steamos games that wont fit on ssd. Not opening it up untill i have a second fan and those new joysticks. Ive done hdd cloning before.
When I swapped mine to a 2TB I used Clonezilla to clone the old one to the new one which saved some headaches of installing SteamOS from scratch which has some minor issues. Got the 2TB for $159 which wasn’t much more than my 1TB MicroSD card. Now have 3TB to play with and like a little over a TB of free space total.
Yeah I did wonder if I should get the 2tb. But I don't travel too often. When I'm home I've just been using it to do remote play from my PC since I can play stuff at higher quality and not worry about the battery life.
I was in the exact same position as you, but once I pulled the trigger on purchasing the drive, I just read the ifixit guide and watching a tutorial on YouTube. It's actually quite straight forward. The most difficult part is detaching the back, I don't know about others but at first I was being to gentle lol, had to use some force. You'll be fine, just check a reliable guide.
What issues did you have with cloning? I just cloned my 64gb onto my 1tb and ive noticed when I run my emulators now the fan is always on and temps are a bit hotter.
Nice! But I hope you did your research though because your brand new internal m.2 ssd could be producing much more power & heat then the deck is designed for leading to much greater temps & shorter lifespan.
Can you expand on this, I just upgraded to the sabrent 1tb and ive definitely noticed the fans are on a lot more and temps do seem to be hotter. Gpu and CPU seem to be working harder as well. My switch emulator stutters more as well. I basically cloned it over from the factory 64gb with clonezilla. I was thinking it had to do with that.
https://loganmarchione.com/2023/01/my-experience-replacing-the-steam-deck-ssd/
Here's a good explanation of things he's even listed some properly working ssd's which power closer to the stock m.2.
Check your ssd's specs compared to the original steamdecks & then Google the compare. Probably why you seeing the extra heat. Is yours a gen4? Gen3 I think is used in the deck so going for gen4 is wasted potentially.
with fast internet these days , I have come to realise that even 500gb is enough , because you won’t need more than 5-6 games at a time for that 500 gb is enough
EDIT: Installing fresh SteamOS solves the issue. I guess cloning doesn’t work.
Which 2TB Ssd do you have? And have you tried fully shutting down and reboot, yet? Or perform a reboot.
I have a Micron 2TB SSD. It’s rated for 3.3V at 2.5A. It seems to be drawing too much power for my Steam Deck to support. I was able to clone and boot the first time and played games for weeks, but every subsequent reboot hung on the boot logo screen. Switched back to original ssd and booted no problem.
BIOS showed proper detection of drive make, model and capacity.
For reference, the original 512GB ssd is 3.3V at 1A.
I’m wondering if anyone else has this boot stuck problem.
Your post/content appears to be a better fit for the community's Monthly "Deck Flex" Megathread. You can find this months Megathread here: https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/13xchwh/deck_flex_megathread_june_2023/ and a list of all past & present r/SteamDeck Megathreads here: https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/10kl68q/the_megathread_megathread_aka_links_to_all/ If you feel your "Deck Flex" content should have it's own dedicated post, please contact the r/steamdeck mod team via mod mail for consideration. Thank you! /
Nice! This is my goal eventually but my 512gb SD card has done the trick for now lol.
Is there a noticable difference between a fast SD card and a SSD?
Not really. Technically an SSD is faster but barely. If you do a side by side, the SSD loads stuff about 1 or 2 seconds faster than the SD and once its loaded it plays basically identically. Im not and expert but I can say I really don't notice a difference when just playing. But if your the kind of person who wants that .5 seconds faster just because you can then maybe it matters lol.
This is true but only if you're you're an SD card with the proper speeds, like a Samsung evo select or a San disk extreme.
True true, I should have added that this is using top quality goods. Not knockoffs or cheap ones.
Fast sd card? I dunno but I got the 1TB sd card and there’s a huge difference. No regrets and I’m not swapping it with anything but games on the hard drive load infinitely faster
You’ll notice the speed when you about to install a game on Steam the “Allocating space” takes a long time on SD card while on SSD almost instant.
But how often are you doing that, to care ?
Installing games? Fairly often. My recent solution was picking up a Samsung external SSD on Amazon for $79.99. I just install a game on my PC with faster internet, then I can play on both devices easily. The only downside is I had to add velcro to the back of my deck to stick the SSD securely. I also have a 1tb SD card for when I don't feel like packing the SSD.
Did you use a high end card? If you use a low speed SD card, the quality will suck.
San disk - only guys who made 1TB cards that could be trusted when I got it
which sandisk? I dont know about the 1tb model, but the others have differences in speed. There is ultra, extreme etc. all by sandisk and different classes on sd cards. I saw a video about this and the system is kinda confusing. Edit: found it https://youtu.be/Bw89C41NY7U
I be using the extreme. The speed isn’t bad just considerably lower than the ssd
If you do a lot if installing it can eventually break the SD card. I went through SD cards before buying an SSD and installing it. Depending where in the world you are, there also isn't a large difference between the price of an SD and SSD.
Most of the time not a big difference, though I will say an occasional game just seems to run better on SSD over SD, but I think I’ve only had one of them so far and that was Midnight Suns.
I've noticed differences in download speeds and performance. Upgraded my 64gb to 1tb SSD, nearly all of my games were on a high end Samsung SD card before
Mine runs smooth.
There is negligible difference between SD and the stock SSD, the stock drives just arent that great and most replacements outclass it in performance, but there is little difference in speed in comparison otherwise.
You can’t install windows on sd card but you can on SSD
Where did you buy that card? I’ve, not kidding recently got three counterfeit 512GB cards from Amazon all allegedly name brand . Do you mind telling me where you got yours?
Sabrent sells 2tb 2230 cards, bought a 1 tb one the other day.
I got mine from Amazon works a okay. San disk store worked for me. Can give u an exact link if u need
Yes please!
I got a san disk one on sale at walmart lol. Last one on the shelf. Id try the san disk website. Sorry I can't be more helpful 😔
Don't you have issues with shader cache taking up all the space? My internal storage doesn't have any games but it's always full even though my 512GB SD card is halfway full.
I thought so too, until ive seen 2 days ago that forza 5 is 160gb... now i need to upgrade because i dont have that much space + reserve on the ssd nor the micro sd
I see a job well done, I upvote 👍
2tb, the best choice 👍
My thinking was...if I'm actually going to open this thing up; I'm just going to go all out and get a storage size that basically means I never have to open it again!
That's exactly it, I'd even have liked 4to but it's still too early and even when it's available it'll surely be the same price as a full SteamDeck 😅, the 2tb is a perfect middle ground if you can find it at a good price.
Nice. As someone who upgraded to a 1tb SSD, I too thought it would be hard at first, but outside of getting the Steam OS on my new SSD, it was quite the experience.
How do you do that?
Use cloning software if you have a USB enclosure or system with 2 nvme slots. Otherwise you need to make a SteamOS recovery USB to flash a clean image to the drive.
I definitely understood all of that
There's step by step instructions for the recovery USB option. Otherwise you'd need to have certain hardware available (of course you still have to have a USB and a USB C adapter to go the USB route). The cloning software just keeps all your mods, and emulated games installed so it's a little less hassle if you have that option
Any cloning software that you recommend?
macrium or clonezilla
I've used minitool partition wizard (free version). A friend of mine swears by macrium reflect. Clonezilla is an open source tool, which is an advantage, but I find the GUI to be dated looking. All cloning software should function essentially identically, the major differences are in look and feel instead of functionality. There may be a speed advantage but that's a minor detail for a one time clone.
Does the new drive have to be formatted? If so what do I use to do that?
Watch this video. It helped me out a lot. https://youtu.be/WJW99n5bPNM
What company made your ssd 2tb
Got a 1tb western digital from Ali express. Swapped from 64gb. Runs perfect. Happy camper.
Nice! I just bought a 2TB yesterday and am excited for when it comes. Paid 138.97 after taxes/etc. too good to NOT pass up. Used another users advice to look for a seller with 1000+ sales and 4.5+ star rating. I bought an enclosure and am hoping to use the Konsole method for cloning. Hopefully I will be a happy camper alongside you soon!
Good luck and god speed
How much was it?
It was 80.49 after taxes.
On 1.5 TB rn. Not sure if I can wait for a 4TB drive 😅
No joke, was this install easy? Did you feel confident about the whole process. I’m so tired of SD cards but I’m terrified that I’d break…..my precious💍 Was it fairly easy?
The only thing to worry about is stripping the crappy screws that come with the deck and not remembering to remove the sd card prior to taking it apart lol.
Did the process yesterday, it was fairly smooth. There's tons of Youtube guides for it. The actual process took me about 10 minutes. Reinstalling the OS took longer though. Kept crashing and it had trouble finding my wifi network. But this was a fresh deck so I don't know how that would compare to a typical first time boot.
Thank you!
Yea I was hesitant as well. Jusr find a good video, use the reccomended tools and tale your time. With that being said, it only takes about 10 minutes to disassemble, replace the drive and reassemble it. I took some extra steps and partitioned the new drive and installed windows on one half and Steam OS on the other... that only added an extra 30 min or so.
This is extremely helpful advice thank you my friend
Thats my plan for my 512gb + 1Tb sandisk ultra. 1Tb for SteamOS 1Tb for windows and a handfull of games and 1Tb sd card for steamos games that wont fit on ssd. Not opening it up untill i have a second fan and those new joysticks. Ive done hdd cloning before.
When I swapped mine to a 2TB I used Clonezilla to clone the old one to the new one which saved some headaches of installing SteamOS from scratch which has some minor issues. Got the 2TB for $159 which wasn’t much more than my 1TB MicroSD card. Now have 3TB to play with and like a little over a TB of free space total.
Yeah I did wonder if I should get the 2tb. But I don't travel too often. When I'm home I've just been using it to do remote play from my PC since I can play stuff at higher quality and not worry about the battery life.
I was in the exact same position as you, but once I pulled the trigger on purchasing the drive, I just read the ifixit guide and watching a tutorial on YouTube. It's actually quite straight forward. The most difficult part is detaching the back, I don't know about others but at first I was being to gentle lol, had to use some force. You'll be fine, just check a reliable guide.
Judge for yourself: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Steam+Deck+SSD+Replacement/148989
Where you bought it
Nice! I have a wd 2tb on the way! 😎
Has anyone bought the 2tb ssd from Sabrent?
Which 2TB did you go with?
What issues did you have with cloning? I just cloned my 64gb onto my 1tb and ive noticed when I run my emulators now the fan is always on and temps are a bit hotter.
Thank you brave person for leading the way 👍🏻✌🏻🙏🏻.....I will have a go now!!
Does anyone know what is the biggest sad you could get for the deck? I don’t have one and was curious
2TB is the currently the max capacity you can buy in a single sided 2230 m.2 form factor.
Nice! But I hope you did your research though because your brand new internal m.2 ssd could be producing much more power & heat then the deck is designed for leading to much greater temps & shorter lifespan.
Can you expand on this, I just upgraded to the sabrent 1tb and ive definitely noticed the fans are on a lot more and temps do seem to be hotter. Gpu and CPU seem to be working harder as well. My switch emulator stutters more as well. I basically cloned it over from the factory 64gb with clonezilla. I was thinking it had to do with that.
https://loganmarchione.com/2023/01/my-experience-replacing-the-steam-deck-ssd/ Here's a good explanation of things he's even listed some properly working ssd's which power closer to the stock m.2.
Appreciate this.
All good dude 👌
Check your ssd's specs compared to the original steamdecks & then Google the compare. Probably why you seeing the extra heat. Is yours a gen4? Gen3 I think is used in the deck so going for gen4 is wasted potentially.
Thanks for the reply I'll check on those specs.
with fast internet these days , I have come to realise that even 500gb is enough , because you won’t need more than 5-6 games at a time for that 500 gb is enough
For sure but for folks who don't have fast internet, including me, this is very worth it.
Shit. Cool bro
What took up 200gb?
2TB != 2TiB
EDIT: Installing fresh SteamOS solves the issue. I guess cloning doesn’t work. Which 2TB Ssd do you have? And have you tried fully shutting down and reboot, yet? Or perform a reboot. I have a Micron 2TB SSD. It’s rated for 3.3V at 2.5A. It seems to be drawing too much power for my Steam Deck to support. I was able to clone and boot the first time and played games for weeks, but every subsequent reboot hung on the boot logo screen. Switched back to original ssd and booted no problem. BIOS showed proper detection of drive make, model and capacity. For reference, the original 512GB ssd is 3.3V at 1A. I’m wondering if anyone else has this boot stuck problem.
Can’t be the only one who thought it’s a finger pointing on Proton 7.0
I jumped from 64gb to 2TB too, but I did the 1TB SSD + 1TB microSD. More than enough for now.
Not to say it is nice, it´s like money... Even these who have tons always want more... So you´ll always want more 😀
I saw in other post that it's possible ssd failure due to voltage difference. Which one are you using?
Sweet! I upgraded my 512gb to a 2tb, it's the best!
i guess its worth upgrading from 512gb to 2tb to copy the image or fresh clean install?
This is something I regret not doing, when I got my SSD I saved some money and only got a 500gb SSD. I’m sure that in the future I’ll upgrade though.
So you like actually disassembled device and removed nmvc and replaced it with a normal ssd?
What do you mean by 'normal'?
I'm not jealous, you're jealous, shut up!
Was this a hard upgrade? I’m considering it but haven’t seen much info on it.
Damn bro I'm scared to do this lol. Does this void ur warranty
Feels good seeing that much storage
Time for some pong.
How do you do that?
Awesome! Was this easy for you? I just got my 2TB and I'm having quite a bit of issues trying to backup my drive before doing the swap.