Steam Deck microSD vs inbuilt storage

[rkunati]

I reserved the steam deck 64 gb version. I figured I could get a 256 gb micro-SD card to expand my storage if needed. I was wondering if that would work as good as getting the 256 gb model. Or should I just save up and get the bigger model from the beginning? Because, far as I could tell other than the screen and the storage all models have the same hardware.

[RONOTHAN##]

From the preliminary testing they're allowed to show, running off an SD card should be about the same as running off the internal storage. All the hardware is the same (besides screen coating on the high end models), so as long as you're fine with having to deal with SD cards for your games, you should be fine.

[Hexenhammer.]

7 minutes ago, rkunati said:

I reserved the steam deck 64 gb version. I figured I could get a 256 gb micro-SD card to expand my storage if needed. I was wondering if that would work as good as getting the 256 gb model. Or should I just save up and get the bigger model from the beginning? Because, far as I could tell other than the screen and the storage all models have the same hardware.

 

Save up for the biggest model. I had to answer the same question to myself.

1. I checked SSD prices on amazon, these tiny ones are very expensive, so upgrading yourself will be costly

2. microSD even A2 will suck for gaming, they not meant for this, i bet it will work fine for 2D games and simple games, but larger games will suffer both in load time and fps

imagine game not being able to cache textures fast enough, you'll be either waiting or loading into "naked" world

[BobVonBob]

LTT tested this in their Steam Deck video yesterday.

 

The Control boot test was identical off internal and SD, but doesn't hold water imo because it looks to me like the game was waiting for the logo screens, not the storage. So given the level load time test it seems to load a bit less than half as fast off the SD card compared to the internal storage.

[Kilrah]

LTT showed the same in control (but as mentioned maybe just because the game has long unskippable startup screens) and more than twice as long on another

 

[RejZoR]

microSD cards use same communication logic as eMMC. Which means all transfers are half-duplex. What this means is if something is downloading in the background or saving, performing write operations, you cannot perform read operations at the same time. It's either one or the other and the commands pile up in the queue. Full blown SSD's all use full duplex with IOPS to throw around. So, obviously there will always be a difference.

[Zodiark1593]

If you're playing a lot of modern AAA titles and such, don't bother with MicroSD. If you've a lot of smaller indie titles however, such as Stardew Valley, Don't Starve, etc, then you can certainly throw them on a MicroSD card with minimal hits to loading.