Storage Options and upgrading the Internal Storage.

[Diogenes]

I have, on my Steam Deck, right now, a 64GB internal hard drive which I CAN upgrade to a 1TB Western Digital 2230 NVME. I have found one online for £175. I haven't bought it yet, but I can buy it at the end of the month.

I also have 2 512GB Micro SD Cards. One Sandisk, and one Samsung. I have a USB C card reader on order, which contains both a USB C port, which I will use for charging, and a Micro SD card reader. I hope to be able to use 2 Micro SD Cards at once, without the need to swap cards round.

Swapping Micro SD cards round isn't really a problem. Though I have read of people damaging their Micro SD Cards by hot swapping the cards round without first either turning off the Deck or unmounting the SD Card via Dolphin.

My question is, is it worth upgrading the internal drive to a 1TB NVME, potentially voiding the warranty on the Steam Deck, if it ever has to be returned to Valve for repairs?

At the minute, I can manage with the Micro SD cards, but more disk space is something that we can all use.

I'm just wondering if it's worth it, or whether or not to just stick with using Micro SD cards for now?

[Nagrali]

One issue I've come across & support ticket cannot resolve is:
I can move all games from internal to microSD fine.
All moved games will NOT move back to internal.

A bummer with lack of space even on my 512gb deck when newer games are 70gb+
So personally, I'd fit 1tb + internally if possible otherwise, it's a lot ot re-downloading or stuck to much slower load times stuck on sd...

[Mahjik]

Originally posted by Diogenes:

I'm just wondering if it's worth it, or whether or not to just stick with using Micro SD cards for now?

It really comes down to how many games you want to be installed at one time. It's the shader downloads that can be the gotcha with the 64gb version. Everyone has different pros/cons so you'll need to see what's best "for you".

[[KAMI] RedWyvern]

Originally posted by Nagrali:

One issue I've come across & support ticket cannot resolve is:
I can move all games from internal to microSD fine.
All moved games will NOT move back to internal.

A bummer with lack of space even on my 512gb deck when newer games are 70gb+
So personally, I'd fit 1tb + internally if possible otherwise, it's a lot ot re-downloading or stuck to much slower load times stuck on sd...

Timestamped YouTube link where this issue gets quickly mentioned, with a fix, in a more technical Steam Deck review:
https://youtu.be/6MP9d3aSwM8?t=504
As I currently only use the internal storage of my Deck I can not give exact instructions to the workaround, but it appears to be possible.