''Warning'' SD card download/install speed is very slow!

[StoneOcean]

Samsung EVO plus A2 V30 512GB
After around 20 sec the install speed will go down to around 5-8mb/s
So 100gb download of a game will take around 4 hours.

Is this only happening me? V30 card should offer a minimum of 30 mb/s

[Soladus]

In 3.4 update you don need this anymore

[Goat of Death]

I was having the same problem with a very slow Samsung Evo + 512gb on my Steam Deck. I'm running Windows 11 on my Steam Deck. I was getting around 5MB/s when trying to move games to the card. I tried the card in multiple machines and readers and did speed tests with CrystalDiskMark and it was still 5MB/s so it was definitely the card. I also tried both NTFS and exFAT as the file systems and the speed didn't change. I tried using a partitioning tool to change the partition structure from GPT to MBR and then back. None of that made a difference.

What ended up solving it for me was doing a low level format (Erase Sectors) which writes 0s to the entire disk using DiskGenuis, which is a free partitioning tool I found. I then used Windows Computer Management -> Disk Management to delete and recreate the partition and quick format it NTFS. After I did that my write speeds jumped to 90MB/s and occasionally drop to 60MB/s when moving games to the card. The difference was stark, getting anywhere from a 12 to 18 times speed boost is crazy. What was also interesting is the low level format started at 5MB/s when monitoring it in Task Manager and said it would take something like 28 hours. But overnight it suddenly sped up and only took 18 hours. So, no idea when in the process the sudden speed boost occurred.

I think if I had started with a full format to NTFS (rather that a quick format) that may have solved the problem as well since that should write 0s to most of the disk as well. Though I have no idea for sure as the low level format worked and I finally have a speedy card.

[Jtwelve]

Publicado originalmente por RoyalMetalKnights:

Publicado originalmente por 亜双義一真:

Hey bro, I'm having the same problem as you, the SD card will overheat when downloading games and then the speed becomes 0 or very slow, could you please guide me on how to use GParted to make the SD card work better, I'm a complete newbie, thanks.

I don't think it's an issue with overheating, I think the built-in Format option on the Deck Game Mode messes up the partition on the SD card.

I had GParted on a bootable USB flash drive as parted of the process of setting up dual-boot for Windows. I also have a USB-C hub to plug it into the Deck along with a keyboard.

I can run you through all that, but first you should try formatting using KDE Partition Manager that's built into Steam Desktop Mode(aka KDE Plasma). I just tried it out on my card, and the speeds seem fine when I downloaded Left 4 Dead 2. Took about 10min to download, then another 2-3min to verify. That whole process would have taken hours when I used the Deck format option previously and my card was behaving weirdly.

Here's the process:
1. Turn on your Steam Deck
2. Hit the 'Steam' button and go to 'Power' and select 'Switch to Desktop Mode'
3. In Desktop mode, click the Start button in the bottom left corner(Steam logo)
4. Select 'System', then off to the right select 'KDE Partition Manager'
5. Off to the left under 'Devices' it will show 2 options: 1 will be 'mmcblk0' and the other will be your internal SSD(named after the drive manufacturer. Mine says "KINGSTON")
6. By default the SD card(mmcblk0) should be selected. If not, select it.
7. In the middle area of the program it will show your partitions. It will show the SD card partition and it should have a little blue box next to 'ext4' under type, a lock icon under mount, and the size and used space.
8. Using the right trackpad hover over it, then using the left trackpad click it. A drop-down menu will appear.
9. Select 'Unmount'
10. Click it again with the left trackpad and select 'Delete'. In the bottom of the program in the 'Pending Operations' box make sure it says "Delete partition". At this point you can undo this if it doesn't. Make sure it doesn't say "Shred", it should say 'Delete'.
11. If it says "Delete Partition", then in the top left of the program just below 'File' there's a button for 'Apply'. Click 'Apply'.
12. A pop-up will appear asking if you want to apply the Delete partition operation. Select 'Apply Pending Operations' button.
13. Operation will finish. Press 'OK'.
14. In the middle box it will now say 'unallocated', 'unknown', and the drive size.
15. Use the left trackpad to click it, and select 'New' from the drop-down menu.
16. In the pop-up, change the 'File System' option to 'ext4' and click 'OK'.
17. Press the 'Apply' button in the top left of the program
18. A pop-up will appear. Press the 'Apply Pending Operations' button.
19. It will take about 50secs to create a new ext4 partition. After it's done, the Desktop will pop-up a Disk & Devices alert showing a new SD was inserted. Just shrink this using the down-arrow in the bottom right corner.
20. Hit 'OK' on the box in KDE Partition Manager then close it.
21. Click the 'Return to Game Mode' button on the Desktop
22. Once you're in Game Mode, eject your SD card and re-insert it.
23. Click the Steam button and go to 'Settings'
24. Scroll down to 'Storage' and click it. It should show your 'Internal Drive' and 'MicroSD Card'. The MicroSD Card should have a gold star next to it, meaning it's the default installation drive. If not, select it and hit 'X' to 'Make Default'.
25. Install a game then hit the Steam menu button and go to 'Downloads' to watch the progress, download speed, and disk usage speed.

I downloaded Left 4 Dead 2 and it starts off really fast and has high disk usage(around 70MB/s). Then it as it installs it will drop down to around 20MB/s for most the install, then speed up again at the end. The download took about 10min to download 8GB and install 14GB, then it took another 3-4min to verify the installation. It never went to zero like before. Before it would take hours to install a game. For bigger games like God of War I was having to leave the Deck on overnight. Now it should be normal again. A 10-14GB game like Left 4 Dead 2 should take ~15min total. A bigger game like God of War should take maybe an hour.

Let me knew if you have any questions about the process.

-----


Yooo February 2023 and this has helped soooo much and fixed my inconsistent download speeds. Thank you for this kind stranger.

[rampaging bunny]

Publicado originalmente por lostgoat:

If you are experiencing this issue, aka these following two conditions apply to you:
* Downloading to your sdcard is slow
* A speedtest from fast.com or speedtest.net is fast

The please try running this command and let me know if it helps:

sudo fstrim -v /run/media/mmcblk0p1

If possible, the output of the command would also be useful. For me it looks like this:

/run/media/mmcblk0p1: 16.9 GiB (18127134720 bytes) trimmed

Interestingly this has trimmed 233.8GB out of a 233.9GB card for me. The SD card hasn't been used, only size-tested with h2testw and was slow since initial formatting in the Deck. Looks like it's better now (20MB/s and not 8MB/s, downloading from a PC on my network so not as fast as from Steam servers)

TIL manual formatting can break the card for some Windows games though, thanks for that, I'll stick with Deck's SD card formatting way then.

[Philhalo66]

try the nintendo switch branded SD cards they are very fast even in heavy large file transfers

[rampaging bunny]

The type is irrelevant and Nintendo cards are needlessly expensive for the logo to be present.

I ran a CrystalDiskInfo on my Samsung Pro Plus 256GB with exfat and I'm easily getting 100MB/s reads and 90MB/s writes.

On Steam Deck the read/write disk speed test showed results that were super close to each other regardless if formatted via Deck or via the manual method, ~85MB/s reads and ~50MB/s writes which indicates this is is probably a Deck (or idk, filesystem?) limitation rather than card limitation.

The fact that it slows down to 8-9MB/s indicates some other underlying issue, which hopefully can be sorted out with the `fstrim` command (still testing this but so far so good I was getting 90MB/s reads)

[Shin_Otaku_Tensei]

I went through and did the format method on Desktop mode. Download speeds were definitely faster but it's finicky and you lose more space. I had 116gb on a 128gb when I formatted in game mode but I only had 111gb out of 116gb with nothing installed when I formatted in desktop mode(5gb allocated to other). Also I had the cards working but after swapping a couple cards they totally stopped mounting altogether. The slow download speeds suck but I'm just going to stick with the game mode formatting system, it just seems to work for me.

Good thing I didn't hit post, I formatted my cards in game mode and they seem to be having super fast download speeds. Maybe they need to be formatted in desktop mode once to clear what ever. Getting a couple drops but nothing like I was experiencing before. Currently downloading at 50 MB/s on a game mode formatted card with only 2 dips to 0MB/s that quickly went back to 50+ . Before when it would hit 0 it would get stuck there for a while and download at 1.3MB/s

[OnOuR_]

Hey hey federal canın senin cehenneme.

[darknessviking]

Publicado originalmente por RoyalMetalKnights:

Publicado originalmente por 亜双義一真:

Hey bro, I'm having the same problem as you, the SD card will overheat when downloading games and then the speed becomes 0 or very slow, could you please guide me on how to use GParted to make the SD card work better, I'm a complete newbie, thanks.

I don't think it's an issue with overheating, I think the built-in Format option on the Deck Game Mode messes up the partition on the SD card.

I had GParted on a bootable USB flash drive as parted of the process of setting up dual-boot for Windows. I also have a USB-C hub to plug it into the Deck along with a keyboard.

I can run you through all that, but first you should try formatting using KDE Partition Manager that's built into Steam Desktop Mode(aka KDE Plasma). I just tried it out on my card, and the speeds seem fine when I downloaded Left 4 Dead 2. Took about 10min to download, then another 2-3min to verify. That whole process would have taken hours when I used the Deck format option previously and my card was behaving weirdly.

Here's the process:
1. Turn on your Steam Deck
2. Hit the 'Steam' button and go to 'Power' and select 'Switch to Desktop Mode'
3. In Desktop mode, click the Start button in the bottom left corner(Steam logo)
4. Select 'System', then off to the right select 'KDE Partition Manager'
5. Off to the left under 'Devices' it will show 2 options: 1 will be 'mmcblk0' and the other will be your internal SSD(named after the drive manufacturer. Mine says "KINGSTON")
6. By default the SD card(mmcblk0) should be selected. If not, select it.
7. In the middle area of the program it will show your partitions. It will show the SD card partition and it should have a little blue box next to 'ext4' under type, a lock icon under mount, and the size and used space.
8. Using the right trackpad hover over it, then using the left trackpad click it. A drop-down menu will appear.
9. Select 'Unmount'
10. Click it again with the left trackpad and select 'Delete'. In the bottom of the program in the 'Pending Operations' box make sure it says "Delete partition". At this point you can undo this if it doesn't. Make sure it doesn't say "Shred", it should say 'Delete'.
11. If it says "Delete Partition", then in the top left of the program just below 'File' there's a button for 'Apply'. Click 'Apply'.
12. A pop-up will appear asking if you want to apply the Delete partition operation. Select 'Apply Pending Operations' button.
13. Operation will finish. Press 'OK'.
14. In the middle box it will now say 'unallocated', 'unknown', and the drive size.
15. Use the left trackpad to click it, and select 'New' from the drop-down menu.
16. In the pop-up, change the 'File System' option to 'ext4' and click 'OK'.
17. Press the 'Apply' button in the top left of the program
18. A pop-up will appear. Press the 'Apply Pending Operations' button.
19. It will take about 50secs to create a new ext4 partition. After it's done, the Desktop will pop-up a Disk & Devices alert showing a new SD was inserted. Just shrink this using the down-arrow in the bottom right corner.
20. Hit 'OK' on the box in KDE Partition Manager then close it.
21. Click the 'Return to Game Mode' button on the Desktop
22. Once you're in Game Mode, eject your SD card and re-insert it.
23. Click the Steam button and go to 'Settings'
24. Scroll down to 'Storage' and click it. It should show your 'Internal Drive' and 'MicroSD Card'. The MicroSD Card should have a gold star next to it, meaning it's the default installation drive. If not, select it and hit 'X' to 'Make Default'.
25. Install a game then hit the Steam menu button and go to 'Downloads' to watch the progress, download speed, and disk usage speed.

I downloaded Left 4 Dead 2 and it starts off really fast and has high disk usage(around 70MB/s). Then it as it installs it will drop down to around 20MB/s for most the install, then speed up again at the end. The download took about 10min to download 8GB and install 14GB, then it took another 3-4min to verify the installation. It never went to zero like before. Before it would take hours to install a game. For bigger games like God of War I was having to leave the Deck on overnight. Now it should be normal again. A 10-14GB game like Left 4 Dead 2 should take ~15min total. A bigger game like God of War should take maybe an hour.

Let me knew if you have any questions about the process.

this is a bunch of nonsense since it freezes on 20%

[rampaging bunny]

No it's not and it doesn't freeze... But also isn't optimal since some PC games will bug out. Use Steam's sd card formatting feature instead

[pɹǝⅎdʅᴉuɹnʇʅnꓘ]

They need to implement that the fan is spinning a bit up to get a proper cooling on that sd card part that sits direct under the fan inlet.

[Alex_1699]

Publicado originalmente por RoyalMetalKnights:

Publicado originalmente por 亜双義一真:

Hey bro, I'm having the same problem as you, the SD card will overheat when downloading games and then the speed becomes 0 or very slow, could you please guide me on how to use GParted to make the SD card work better, I'm a complete newbie, thanks.

I don't think it's an issue with overheating, I think the built-in Format option on the Deck Game Mode messes up the partition on the SD card.

I had GParted on a bootable USB flash drive as parted of the process of setting up dual-boot for Windows. I also have a USB-C hub to plug it into the Deck along with a keyboard.

I can run you through all that, but first you should try formatting using KDE Partition Manager that's built into Steam Desktop Mode(aka KDE Plasma). I just tried it out on my card, and the speeds seem fine when I downloaded Left 4 Dead 2. Took about 10min to download, then another 2-3min to verify. That whole process would have taken hours when I used the Deck format option previously and my card was behaving weirdly.

Here's the process:
1. Turn on your Steam Deck
2. Hit the 'Steam' button and go to 'Power' and select 'Switch to Desktop Mode'
3. In Desktop mode, click the Start button in the bottom left corner(Steam logo)
4. Select 'System', then off to the right select 'KDE Partition Manager'
5. Off to the left under 'Devices' it will show 2 options: 1 will be 'mmcblk0' and the other will be your internal SSD(named after the drive manufacturer. Mine says "KINGSTON")
6. By default the SD card(mmcblk0) should be selected. If not, select it.
7. In the middle area of the program it will show your partitions. It will show the SD card partition and it should have a little blue box next to 'ext4' under type, a lock icon under mount, and the size and used space.
8. Using the right trackpad hover over it, then using the left trackpad click it. A drop-down menu will appear.
9. Select 'Unmount'
10. Click it again with the left trackpad and select 'Delete'. In the bottom of the program in the 'Pending Operations' box make sure it says "Delete partition". At this point you can undo this if it doesn't. Make sure it doesn't say "Shred", it should say 'Delete'.
11. If it says "Delete Partition", then in the top left of the program just below 'File' there's a button for 'Apply'. Click 'Apply'.
12. A pop-up will appear asking if you want to apply the Delete partition operation. Select 'Apply Pending Operations' button.
13. Operation will finish. Press 'OK'.
14. In the middle box it will now say 'unallocated', 'unknown', and the drive size.
15. Use the left trackpad to click it, and select 'New' from the drop-down menu.
16. In the pop-up, change the 'File System' option to 'ext4' and click 'OK'.
17. Press the 'Apply' button in the top left of the program
18. A pop-up will appear. Press the 'Apply Pending Operations' button.
19. It will take about 50secs to create a new ext4 partition. After it's done, the Desktop will pop-up a Disk & Devices alert showing a new SD was inserted. Just shrink this using the down-arrow in the bottom right corner.
20. Hit 'OK' on the box in KDE Partition Manager then close it.
21. Click the 'Return to Game Mode' button on the Desktop
22. Once you're in Game Mode, eject your SD card and re-insert it.
23. Click the Steam button and go to 'Settings'
24. Scroll down to 'Storage' and click it. It should show your 'Internal Drive' and 'MicroSD Card'. The MicroSD Card should have a gold star next to it, meaning it's the default installation drive. If not, select it and hit 'X' to 'Make Default'.
25. Install a game then hit the Steam menu button and go to 'Downloads' to watch the progress, download speed, and disk usage speed.

I downloaded Left 4 Dead 2 and it starts off really fast and has high disk usage(around 70MB/s). Then it as it installs it will drop down to around 20MB/s for most the install, then speed up again at the end. The download took about 10min to download 8GB and install 14GB, then it took another 3-4min to verify the installation. It never went to zero like before. Before it would take hours to install a game. For bigger games like God of War I was having to leave the Deck on overnight. Now it should be normal again. A 10-14GB game like Left 4 Dead 2 should take ~15min total. A bigger game like God of War should take maybe an hour.

Let me knew if you have any questions about the process.

Bro this helped me!!! At first it did not work and I had to close Steam, after that I was able to farm my card!

[Andy Kuo]

My Samsung Pro Plus 512GB has the same problem too. Do all these problems come from Samsung SD cards?
https://www.samsung.com/tw/memory-storage/memory-card/pro-plus-512gb-microsd-card-2021-mb-md512ka-apc/

[Yibure Nihuyawa]

Publicado originalmente por RoyalMetalKnights:

Publicado originalmente por 亜双義一真:

Hey bro, I'm having the same problem as you, the SD card will overheat when downloading games and then the speed becomes 0 or very slow, could you please guide me on how to use GParted to make the SD card work better, I'm a complete newbie, thanks.

I don't think it's an issue with overheating, I think the built-in Format option on the Deck Game Mode messes up the partition on the SD card.

I had GParted on a bootable USB flash drive as parted of the process of setting up dual-boot for Windows. I also have a USB-C hub to plug it into the Deck along with a keyboard.

I can run you through all that, but first you should try formatting using KDE Partition Manager that's built into Steam Desktop Mode(aka KDE Plasma). I just tried it out on my card, and the speeds seem fine when I downloaded Left 4 Dead 2. Took about 10min to download, then another 2-3min to verify. That whole process would have taken hours when I used the Deck format option previously and my card was behaving weirdly.

Here's the process:
1. Turn on your Steam Deck
2. Hit the 'Steam' button and go to 'Power' and select 'Switch to Desktop Mode'
3. In Desktop mode, click the Start button in the bottom left corner(Steam logo)
4. Select 'System', then off to the right select 'KDE Partition Manager'
5. Off to the left under 'Devices' it will show 2 options: 1 will be 'mmcblk0' and the other will be your internal SSD(named after the drive manufacturer. Mine says "KINGSTON")
6. By default the SD card(mmcblk0) should be selected. If not, select it.
7. In the middle area of the program it will show your partitions. It will show the SD card partition and it should have a little blue box next to 'ext4' under type, a lock icon under mount, and the size and used space.
8. Using the right trackpad hover over it, then using the left trackpad click it. A drop-down menu will appear.
9. Select 'Unmount'
10. Click it again with the left trackpad and select 'Delete'. In the bottom of the program in the 'Pending Operations' box make sure it says "Delete partition". At this point you can undo this if it doesn't. Make sure it doesn't say "Shred", it should say 'Delete'.
11. If it says "Delete Partition", then in the top left of the program just below 'File' there's a button for 'Apply'. Click 'Apply'.
12. A pop-up will appear asking if you want to apply the Delete partition operation. Select 'Apply Pending Operations' button.
13. Operation will finish. Press 'OK'.
14. In the middle box it will now say 'unallocated', 'unknown', and the drive size.
15. Use the left trackpad to click it, and select 'New' from the drop-down menu.
16. In the pop-up, change the 'File System' option to 'ext4' and click 'OK'.
17. Press the 'Apply' button in the top left of the program
18. A pop-up will appear. Press the 'Apply Pending Operations' button.
19. It will take about 50secs to create a new ext4 partition. After it's done, the Desktop will pop-up a Disk & Devices alert showing a new SD was inserted. Just shrink this using the down-arrow in the bottom right corner.
20. Hit 'OK' on the box in KDE Partition Manager then close it.
21. Click the 'Return to Game Mode' button on the Desktop
22. Once you're in Game Mode, eject your SD card and re-insert it.
23. Click the Steam button and go to 'Settings'
24. Scroll down to 'Storage' and click it. It should show your 'Internal Drive' and 'MicroSD Card'. The MicroSD Card should have a gold star next to it, meaning it's the default installation drive. If not, select it and hit 'X' to 'Make Default'.
25. Install a game then hit the Steam menu button and go to 'Downloads' to watch the progress, download speed, and disk usage speed.

I downloaded Left 4 Dead 2 and it starts off really fast and has high disk usage(around 70MB/s). Then it as it installs it will drop down to around 20MB/s for most the install, then speed up again at the end. The download took about 10min to download 8GB and install 14GB, then it took another 3-4min to verify the installation. It never went to zero like before. Before it would take hours to install a game. For bigger games like God of War I was having to leave the Deck on overnight. Now it should be normal again. A 10-14GB game like Left 4 Dead 2 should take ~15min total. A bigger game like God of War should take maybe an hour.

Let me knew if you have any questions about the process.

Followed all of the steps (before and after setting a sudo password for the deck default user), both times the execution of creating a partition failed. Here's the error log:

KDE Partition Manager: SMART Status Report
Date: 	12/20/23 1:58 PM
Program version: 	23.04.2
Backend: 	pmsfdiskbackendplugin (1)
KDE Frameworks version: 	5.106.0
Machine: 	Linux steamdeck 6.1.52-valve9-1-neptune-61 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Wed, 22 Nov 2023 23:43:34 +0000 x86_64

Create a new partition (928.89 GiB, ext4) on ‘/dev/mmcblk0’
Job: Create new partition on device ‘/dev/mmcblk0’
Command: sfdisk --force --append /dev/mmcblk0
Command: sfdisk --list --output Device,UUID /dev/mmcblk0
Create new partition ‘/dev/mmcblk0p1’: Success
Job: Create file system ‘ext4’ on partition ‘/dev/mmcblk0p1’
Command: mkfs.ext4 -qF /dev/mmcblk0p1
Command: sfdisk --part-type /dev/mmcblk0 1 0FC63DAF-8483-4772-8E79-3D69D8477DE4
Create file system ‘ext4’ on partition ‘/dev/mmcblk0p1’: Success
Job: Set the file system label on partition ‘/dev/mmcblk0p1’ to "sd"
Command: e2label /dev/mmcblk0p1 sd
Set the file system label on partition ‘/dev/mmcblk0p1’ to "sd": Success
Job: Check file system on partition ‘/dev/mmcblk0p1’
Command: e2fsck -f -y -v /dev/mmcblk0p1
Check file system on partition ‘/dev/mmcblk0p1’: Error
Create a new partition (928.89 GiB, ext4) on ‘/dev/mmcblk0’: Error

On your step 22, ejecting and injecting the SD card does nothing - only if I already have Settings->Storage opened, I can notice SD card flashing for a split of second before disappearing.

What's more weird is that if I try to run

sudo e2fsck -f -y -v /dev/mmcblk0p1

separately in the Konsole, it shows a healthy ext4 partition with no errors whatsoever.

Could it be that I missed something while following your steps? Could you kindly provide more exact details on the parameters for the partition creation (steps 15-17)?

[Oga]

any fix for windows ? windows on SSD and sd card for games ? thanks