Moving games to the SD card taking forever

[Mister Shan]

I have another thread about how my downloads to my San Disk ultra SD card took forever, and I was told I should download to the internal SSD and move it over to the SD card as SD downloads are bad. I am trying that now but moving games is taking forever. Splitgate which is 20gigs has been slowly going for a half hour 45 mins or so and it’s only halfway done. I’ve formatted and reformatted this card a few times. What is the issue here? The San Disk Ultra cards are slow but this slow?

[zenstrata]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGHZs8RTlVU

I suggest watching the whole thing, it helps a lot when trying to pick an Micro SD card for your steam deck, and it will help you determine if your current card is a good card for using on the Steam Deck.

This is the card I use, and i have not noticed any problems. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09B1HMJ9Z/

[Mister Shan]

zenstrata の投稿を引用：

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGHZs8RTlVU

I suggest watching the whole thing, it helps a lot when trying to pick an Micro SD card for your steam deck, and it will help you determine if your current card is a good card for using on the Steam Deck.

But this doesn't help explain my issue. Plenty people seem to be buying these A1 cards and don't report this kind of issue. I mean taking hours to move 50gigs of data? Usb 2.0 drives from years ago could do way better than that. I want to make sure It's not my deck before I go and buy something else. I already blew what 700 bucks on this thing..

[zenstrata]

It's likely the card you are using might not be specifically the best speed you could be using for your steam deck.

This is why I showed you the video.

And it's not just about the A1 designation, your 'sandisk ultra' card (is it the ultra? or the Ultra Plus?) has other designations which matter too. For example, if you have the common sandisk ultra card, your cards entire designation is A1, U1, HC1.

All of those designations basically tell you exactly how fast the card is capable of moving data around during different types of operations. In the case of writing a large block of data, the 'U' designation is the one that matters. Your Sandisk Ultra card is a U1 card, this means you can write sequentially 10MB/s But a U3 card can write sequentially at 30MB/s.

So when you are copying your games, it is going to be 3 times slower with your existing card to copy games to the card, than the steam deck is capable of writing data through the Micro SD slot. You need a U3 card to take full advantage of the speeds for writing large blocks of data with the Steam Deck.

All that was in the video. But i'll admit, it is confusing because there are lots of designations that mean different things.

The card I linked that worked well for me has very specific designations that allow it to match up well with the Steam Deck.

If you want faster speeds for copying data back and forth to move games around, you need a newer card. Sorry =/ that's just how it is.

I suggest this one.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09B1HMJ9Z/

Also - you will likely be in a pickle if you want to get a 1TB Micro SD card, because to get one with the proper speed ratings is going to cost you nearly 200 dollars just for the card. This is why I suggest the 512GB card. They are much more affordable, right around 60$ I believe at the moment for one which can take full advantage of the Steam Deck's capabilities.

[zenstrata]

One other thing, don't get the idea that your card will not work well for gaming on the steam deck. Once you have the game copied over, it's likely it will perform just fine with your current Micro SD card. It's the copying the game over which will be a bit painful (as well as downloading updates if the update is a large one, since that is often just a single large write process as well).

But playing the games should work just fine with your current card.

Also - always beware of counterfeit memory cards, even on amazon you have to be careful. This is why I directed you to one sold directly by amazon and not a third party seller. That way, if there are any problems, you can always return it for free and get your money back.

[zenstrata]

If it helps at all, I had to wait 3 days before even playing anything on my Steam Deck after it arrived, because that's how long it took me to download the 60 games I wanted to fill up my 512 micro sd card. In my case it wasn't the card speed, it was my internet speed. (I have slow internet)

So you are not alone! These things just take time for a lot of us and there's not much we can do about it.

[Mister Shan]

zenstrata の投稿を引用：

If it helps at all, I had to wait 3 days before even playing anything on my Steam Deck after it arrived, because that's how long it took me to download the 60 games I wanted to fill up my 512 micro sd card. In my case it wasn't the card speed, it was my internet speed. (I have slow internet)

So you are not alone! These things just take time for a lot of us and there's not much we can do about it.

Thanks. Yea I understood the video. But what I’m getting is way less than a solid 10mbs. It will sometimes just sit at 1 or 2. But yea the only way to tell is get a new card. That’s actually the one I ordered. I wanted to wait for a 1tb one but the SanDisk is 140 dollars more. And no the internet isn’t the problem. That’s where I’m lucky. When I DL games to my SSD it takes like a half hour-45 mins to download 130gig games. If this works though I’ll be happy. Doubled my SD storage for 60 bucks more. I

[Mister Shan]

But also what I’m worried about is someone on Reddit has this card and is having similar issues as I’m having. But haven’t confirmed if it’s only when he downloads or transfers. Looks like about the same Samsung I got. If it is my deck this is at least how I find out if I need to RMA. Samsung 512GB EVO Plus Micro SD Memory Card /w Adapter

[zenstrata]

Mister Shan の投稿を引用：

But also what I’m worried about is someone on Reddit has this card and is having similar issues as I’m having. But haven’t confirmed if it’s only when he downloads or transfers. Looks like about the same Samsung I got. If it is my deck this is at least how I find out if I need to RMA. Samsung 512GB EVO Plus Micro SD Memory Card /w Adapter

As long as whichever one you picked said "Sold by Amazon" and was not some random third party seller (assuming you used amazon) it should be fine, easy enough to return if it doesn't work out.

The one exception to that would be if samsung sold it to you directly... there are a lot of counterfeits out there. =/ it's frightfully easy for companies to slap a fake label on one of those cards and make extra money for a sub-par product.

I do know the feels though, I have dropped a fair bit of money on random cards over the years, one for my phone, another for my tablet, and now one for the Steam Deck. They have all been useful enough, but each time I buy one, I have to re-learn the designation system to make sure I get one that is decent for each product.... it's a bit maddening sometimes to see so many changes in just a few years with these little things.

[OGNocturnal]

The card is likely damaged over the deck with it being ex-switch. They don't transfer well previously used. I know i said i couldnt recommend one but the evo select 256 is 1 of 3 cards i bought. Its untested currently but supposed to work well.

[Mahjik]

There is a very long thread in here (you can search and find it) that suggests an alternative formatting rather than using the built in one in the Gaming Mode menu, that unlocks the SD write speed. That being said, it appears based on the thread that some of the formatting options Valve is using slows down the writing to compromise for better compatibility of file systems.

[Mister Shan]

Well the 512 Evo is coming today so I’ll know soon if it’s a steam deck issue or a bad card. If you guys are curious I’ll follow up to let you know. I may though return this for a 1tb card though. Even with a 512 SSD these things fill so fast, and I haven’t even installed windows or emulators yet. I definitely want to install a COD on this thing and those are like 200 gigs each at this point.

[[CPC] Nitro]

Hello, I got the same card, it worked well for a few weeks then start "acting" bad. After discovering the famous thread I could use a command that completly fixed the issue (I might have to launch the command from time to time but it will probably be fixed internally if enough people has the issue).
Here's my message which contains the command from the SD dev and my findings:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1675200/discussions/0/3269061071528807540/?ctp=7#c3424446023730068176
There is also something more powerful (reformatting the card) at the beginning of the thread but I would stick to the fstrim command if it works for you.

[Mister Shan]

CPC Nitro の投稿を引用：

Hello, I got the same card, it worked well for a few weeks then start "acting" bad. After discovering the famous thread I could use a command that completly fixed the issue (I might have to launch the command from time to time but it will probably be fixed internally if enough people has the issue).
Here's my message which contains the command from the SD dev and my findings:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1675200/discussions/0/3269061071528807540/?ctp=7#c3424446023730068176
There is also something more powerful (reformatting the card) at the beginning of the thread but I would stick to the fstrim command if it works for you.

I was just about to say to everyone else that posted on this thread that I got the 512 Samsung Evo card and everything works perfectly now. My downloads are almost as fast as the internal SSD, and transferring games is super quick. This has been happening ever since I put the the San Disk Ultra in the deck. I think I may have just had a bad card. What else could it be? If there was an error in the system then why would this card work? Did you bring yours from a Switch?

[invision2212]

Mister Shan の投稿を引用：

CPC Nitro の投稿を引用：

Hello, I got the same card, it worked well for a few weeks then start "acting" bad. After discovering the famous thread I could use a command that completly fixed the issue (I might have to launch the command from time to time but it will probably be fixed internally if enough people has the issue).
Here's my message which contains the command from the SD dev and my findings:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1675200/discussions/0/3269061071528807540/?ctp=7#c3424446023730068176
There is also something more powerful (reformatting the card) at the beginning of the thread but I would stick to the fstrim command if it works for you.

I was just about to say to everyone else that posted on this thread that I got the 512 Samsung Evo card and everything works perfectly now. My downloads are almost as fast as the internal SSD, and transferring games is super quick. This has been happening ever since I put the the San Disk Ultra in the deck. I think I may have just had a bad card. What else could it be? If there was an error in the system then why would this card work? Did you bring yours from a Switch?

my 400gb sandisk ultra is slow too, it reaches about 15mb a sec and sometimes slower.
i ended up replacing with a sandisk extreme and that card is so much faster and can maintain 55-70mb a sec

[ClassicGOD]

If I remember correctly 400gb Sandisk Ultra cards where one of the first "affordable" microSD cards over 256gb on the market 4 or 5 years ago. But they were known for low performance getting sub 2MB/s writes in tests. If those are still the same cards I am completely not surprised you are getting such slow transfer speeds.

I don't recommend getting U1 and/or A1 class card for steam deck. Always aim for U3+A2