Steam Deck has now killed 4 different micro SD cards

[ba0701]

**TLDR**
My Deck absolutely has issues regarding it's internal micro SD card slot. It has killed off 4 different cards, including some brand new ones, from different manufacturers, while cards connected to my Deck via external USB readers have not had any issues at all.

Yep, 4, and all four of them were plugged directly into the Deck's sd card slot at the time of their deaths. 3 of them were Sandisk Extreme 1TB cards, and one was was a Samsung Evo Select 512GB card. The first one that died, a Sandisk Extreme 1TB, died when attempting to format it for the first time with KDE in Desktop Mode, that card had been used for almost a year in a Switch, and never had an issue. The next two 1TB Extreme cards were brand new, specifically for the Deck directly from WD's website, one of those was an RMA replacement for the first card that was killed, the other was purchased when I saw how well they stood behind their products on the RMA for the first card. The RMA card died 32 days after I received it, with a 30 day warranty on RMA cards. I don't know, haven't tried, but I doubt Sandisk will send me another RMA card for the brand new card I purchased from them, when something clearly seems to not be functioning optimally. The second two 1TB cards both died while simply being plugged into the Deck's slot, and the same goes for the 512 card.

All 3 of those cards started exhibiting strange behavior, like games that were installed on them would simply disappear from being installed, though the folders still existed on the drives and contained all of the files. Then when I would try to "reinstall" them, the download phase would hang, and I would eventually get a disk write error. Once that happens, there is no saving the cards. I tried to recover the partitions and reformat them, both on the Deck and on my Windows PC, and they could not be formatted. Other odd behavior was when I would delete the folders of the games no longer being listed as installed, and when I would reboot the Deck, the folders I just deleted would return, with all files still within them, and a verification/download would begin.

So, I have figured out how to use an External USB hard drive, after following the steps outlined in a Youtube video (I can gladly link the video if anyone is interested, as the process works 100%, including getting the drives to auto-mount when plugged in, which means whenever you reboot your system you don't have to go to Desktop mode to mount your drives connected via USB). I have a Seagate 8TB external USB 3.0 drive, and decided to plug it into the Deck using this process. Thanks to another thread on these boards, regarding slow SD cards that are formatted via the Deck, I have developed a process for formatting any cards/drives that are going to be used on the Deck, formatting them on my Windows PC instead of the Deck. However, even though the app used for doing this formatting shows the process completing successfully, after running for more than 12 hours, that program nor the Deck are able to recognize the EXT4 partition. However, I am able to format the drive using the Deck, a process that takes less than 3 minutes, and the Deck is able to use this drive, but then the incredibly slow download issue that caused me to partition/format my drives in Windows to begin with returns. We're talking low single digit MB/s speeds on a 1Gb/s internet connection slow, where I have typically been able to maintain >60-74MB/s download speeds when the drive has been formatted in Windows.

I am at a total loss. I have one more option I can try, which is a portable (no external power needed, powered from the USB port) 4TB drive I have, that I can try to see if that program will partition/format it. I also have a couple more micro SD cards I can use through an external USB reader, but I am certainly hesitant to plug those into the Deck's slot. If I can find a Windows program, currently using the Mini-Tool Partition Wizard (Free version), that can properly format this 8TB drive, then I can simply buy a 1TB internal drive for the Deck, and keep any games I might wish to play on the go, on it, and everything else, like games I use K&M on, I can keep on the 8TB drive. I'd be more than happy to pay for the full version of such a program, but only after I verified that it could properly format my 8TB drives via a freeware/shareware version of the program first.

I know I have seen a lot of SD card issues, especially problems involving formatting them directly on the Deck, in these forums, so I know I am not the only one with some issues with the Deck and SD cards. How many, if any at all, have been completely killed by the Deck I have no idea, but there is no doubt that something is going on there. I don't know if there is an issue with the Deck's drive, perhaps misaligned heads, perhaps some sort of a grounding issue, I can't speak to any of that, but there is most certainly an issue of some sort. I have used micro-sd cards for years, and the only two I had problems with resulted from my phones being dropped, short of that I have not had a single problem. I also have two separate external card readers connected to my Deck, and none of the cards plugged into those has failed or given me any problems at all, only cards plugged directly into my Deck, and once those cards begin suffering from problems on the Deck they are entirely unable to recover from them, those cards are DOA.

[psymin]

İlk olarak YourStarfishOnAPlate tarafından gönderildi:

I just had a second SD card fail, this time a 1TB Sandisk card. It failed while copying multi GB of files from my Windows PC.

..right before an extended vacation where I had planned on using my steamdeck extensively.

I'm done. Definitely selling and not dealing with this again.

The "right" way to copy those files might be to put it in the deck fresh, wipe it out / format it on the deck.

Log into steam on windows, and then install the game on the deck. It should automatically copy the files over the network from the windows box.

No fussing with the card required. As long as the card is formatted for the deck and left in the deck, never put in the windows PC.

[YourStarfishOnAPlate]

İlk olarak psymin tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak YourStarfishOnAPlate tarafından gönderildi:

I just had a second SD card fail, this time a 1TB Sandisk card. It failed while copying multi GB of files from my Windows PC.

..right before an extended vacation where I had planned on using my steamdeck extensively.

I'm done. Definitely selling and not dealing with this again.

The "right" way to copy those files might be to put it in the deck fresh, wipe it out / format it on the deck.

Log into steam on windows, and then install the game on the deck. It should automatically copy the files over the network from the windows box.

No fussing with the card required. As long as the card is formatted for the deck and left in the deck, never put in the windows PC.

I never said the card was ever in a windows pc.

[I Train UFC]

SteamOS is a literal virus just install Windows 11 and reformat your MicroSD there. They clearly don't care about their customers when this issue is still a thing.

[SiTWulf]

And another Kingston Canvas Select Plus 512Gb dead.
I always make the internal storage to Default one.
I not use the microSD to storage Games, only Mame Roms (only 340GB)

https://www.kingston.com/en/blog/personal-storage/valve-steam-deck-storage-microsd

"Kingston microSD cards are compatible with Steam Deck, Nintendo Switch and other gaming devices, mobiles and tablets with a microSD slot. The lifetime warranty and free technical support will assist you for years to come, and with a range of capacities to suit all your storage requirements you won't need to worry whilst gaming."

[Smart0ne]

My steamdeck killed one Kingston Canvas Select Plus 512 card, my mate`s steamdeck killed 2 kingston canvas cards and one Netac 512gb card.
All cards dies while steamdeck was in the sleeping mode.
All cards were brand new and 100% original.
All cards worked something about one month long

[Veica]

İlk olarak FireBreathingFists tarafından gönderildi:

SteamOS is a literal virus just install Windows 11 and reformat your MicroSD there. They clearly don't care about their customers when this issue is still a thing.

Imagine calling other OSes viruses and recommending Win11 over literally anything else...

[I Train UFC]

İlk olarak Veica tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak FireBreathingFists tarafından gönderildi:

SteamOS is a literal virus just install Windows 11 and reformat your MicroSD there. They clearly don't care about their customers when this issue is still a thing.

Imagine calling other OSes viruses and recommending Win11 over literally anything else...

Imagine actually reading. I recommended Windows 11 because at the time SteamOS was killing MicroSD's. Now based on a comment from a guy one hour ago it looks like it still does. At least Windows 11 doesn't have a built in function that destroys your device so yeah I would recommend it over SteamOS even though the last Windows that I enjoyed was Windows XP.

[deaddoof]

İlk olarak Smart0ne tarafından gönderildi:

My steamdeck killed one Kingston Canvas Select Plus 512 card, my mate`s steamdeck killed 2 kingston canvas cards and one Netac 512gb card.
All cards dies while steamdeck was in the sleeping mode.
All cards were brand new and 100% original.
All cards worked something about one month long

Powerful in performance, speed, and durability, the Canvas Select Plus microSD is designed for reliability when shooting and developing high-resolution photos or filming and editing full HD videos.

https://www.kingston.com/en/memory-cards/canvas-select-plus-microsd-card

Kingston marketing do not inspire confidence. Media requires less durability than whatever typically needed for normal operating system

SD companies never market their durability. Even if its real, you probably end up buying low durability cards.

I buy industrial sd cards for a lot of personal problem when I do not need the space. Granted, I pay more for smaller storage.

[SiTWulf]

Why not make a post into Bugs section?

[Adamska_01]

The problem is not with the micro sds, but the steam deck sd port, which tends to scratch the card if you're not careful. This is a known issue, which of course Valve didn't care to fix, even on the new model

[TRUCK]

tl;dr

Happened when inserting the SD card. So you didn't turn off the steam deck before inserting/removing the card?

This the same reason Nintendo Switch has a warning about inserting/removing SD cards while it's powered on. If you do the switch will instantly turn off.

Doesn't matter if it's hot swappable. Switch/Deck both require to be turned off before moving the card to prevent damage.