Is it safe to swap micro SD cards while the Steam Deck is on?

[Oblaque]

Is it safe to swap micro SD cards while the Steam Deck is on?

[strykerpsg]

Theoretically, yes, possible. In practice, highly not recommended

[PopinFRESH]

Originally posted by Oblaque:

Is it safe to swap micro SD cards while the Steam Deck is on?

If you're using it for SteamOS3 in game mode with the microSD card as formatted in game mode (gpt and an ext4 filesystem with case folding) for switching out Steam game libraries on multiple microSD cards, yes it is safe and an advertised feature. You'll want to make sure you have exited any game that you might have been running from the microSD card first. If you're doing this for desktop mode and/or for non-steam games then you may need to do more on the software side of things before swapping the microSD card (e.g. unmount filesystem, etc.)

Originally posted by strykerpsg:

Theoretically, yes, possible. In practice, highly not recommended

This is nonsense. There is nothing hardware wise that is problematic with hot swapping them. If you look at the pins/contacts on the card, that is why you'll see two of the contacts extend slightly further than the rest of the contacts. those are the power pins so that power connects/disconnects before/after the data pins have connected/disconnected.

They are designed to be hot swapped.

[Mahjik]

One thing to keep in mind is that when you switch SD cards, at that time, the games that were on the previous card will appear to be "uninstalled" to Steam (i.e. it will try to clean up the shader cache). The new games it detects on the newly inserted card, it will attempt to download the shaders for those games.

Basically, you'll get into a situation where each SD swap, the Deck will be downloading shaders. You can set the games to "update this game when I launch it" so the shader files won't redownload for every game on each SD card each swap.

[Turbo]

Eject it on the Storage screen.

[strykerpsg]

Originally posted by PopinFRESH:

Originally posted by Oblaque:

Is it safe to swap micro SD cards while the Steam Deck is on?

If you're using it for SteamOS3 in game mode with the microSD card as formatted in game mode (gpt and an ext4 filesystem with case folding) for switching out Steam game libraries on multiple microSD cards, yes it is safe and an advertised feature. You'll want to make sure you have exited any game that you might have been running from the microSD card first. If you're doing this for desktop mode and/or for non-steam games then you may need to do more on the software side of things before swapping the microSD card (e.g. unmount filesystem, etc.)

Originally posted by strykerpsg:

Theoretically, yes, possible. In practice, highly not recommended

This is nonsense. There is nothing hardware wise that is problematic with hot swapping them. If you look at the pins/contacts on the card, that is why you'll see two of the contacts extend slightly further than the rest of the contacts. those are the power pins so that power connects/disconnects before/after the data pins have connected/disconnected.

They are designed to be hot swapped.

You actually stated in much lengthier terms what I was referencing overall. So long as there's nothing running or connected to the OS, then its fine. However, this is the preferred method:

Originally posted by Turbo:

Eject it on the Storage screen.

[Poobah Gorg]

Originally posted by Turbo:

Eject it on the Storage screen.

This. Keep in mind that it lets the OS know to finish up with the SD so YOU can safely eject it. It won't physically eject it for you. Same way that Windows handles SD ejection.

Pretty sure this has something to do with TRIM?

[Turbo]

No, TRIM is for SSD.

[Minneyar]

You cannot physically damage an SD card by ejecting it while the system is on, but if the Deck is in the middle of writing to files on the card, you could end up with corrupted data. As long as you're in gaming mode and are not running a game or downloading anything to the card, this is very unlikely, but not impossible. Ejecting it through Steam's storage menu ensures that it's done writing in order to guarantee it's safe to remove it.

[ClassicGOD]

Originally posted by Turbo:

No, TRIM is for SSD.

Modern microSD cards support trim and wear leveling but the "eject" functionality has nothing to do with it.

[FandangoChristmas]

Yes its totally fine. Just make sure your not running anything from it, and eject the card (unmount) before removing.