Steam Deck seems to kill my SD Cards

[bvcelari]

I got my steam deck Since last September.

I bought an SD card, an "Kingston SDCS2/512GB Canvas Select Plus - microSD, Class 10", and used as Hard Disk as far as I bought the small Steam Deck
After few months, out of the blue, the SD card go "corrupt" and I was unable to format or use it anymore, I complained to Kingston, and they gladly helped me with a refund.
So, I thought it was bad luck and bought a second one. This one, only lasted 1 month. After one month, It got like a break, no OS can recognize it.

Are there any known issues with Steam Deck and the SD Cards? I could have bad luck once, but twice in a row, with an average card like Kingston, feels unusual.

I can understand that eventually the SD card would die, but few months, seems like too little to me.

Any advice? Any ideas?

[deaddoof]

Are you sure your SD card isn't fake? I gave up on Amazon because of too many fake storage devices.

[Mahjik]

I think the way the Deck is designed may be exposing some lack of robustness on some SD cards. It's no secret that the Deck runs hot and the SD cards are subjected to a lot more heat than they are likely subjected to in other devices. I have no direct data that supports this, but I think the amount of heat the Deck is subjecting the cards to is showing some shortcomings in some manufacturer products.

[deaddoof]

Originally posted by Mahjik:

I think the way the Deck is designed may be exposing some lack of robustness on some SD cards. It's no secret that the Deck runs hot and the SD cards are subjected to a lot more heat than they are likely subjected to in other devices. I have no direct data that supports this, but I think the amount of heat the Deck is subjecting the cards to is showing some shortcomings in some manufacturer products.

I believe Bunnie reported most fake cards are real cards but they do not pass the quality control test at that particular storage size. Those cards should be binned at a smaller but cheaper SKU.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruEn7TE4YMM

[Mahjik]

Originally posted by deaddoof:

Originally posted by Mahjik:

I think the way the Deck is designed may be exposing some lack of robustness on some SD cards. It's no secret that the Deck runs hot and the SD cards are subjected to a lot more heat than they are likely subjected to in other devices. I have no direct data that supports this, but I think the amount of heat the Deck is subjecting the cards to is showing some shortcomings in some manufacturer products.

I believe Bunnie reported most fake cards are real cards but they do not pass the quality control test at that particular storage size. Those cards should be binned at a smaller but cheaper SKU.

I don't discount there are a lot of "fake" or whatever they are referred to cards. Typically, those are the ones that just won't format at all on the Deck. When a card was working, and then fails quickly, I don't believe those fall into the "fake" category (at least not for me).

[deaddoof]

Originally posted by Mahjik:

I don't discount there are a lot of "fake" or whatever they are referred to cards. Typically, those are the ones that just won't format at all on the Deck. When a card was working, and then fails quickly, I don't believe those fall into the "fake" category (at least not for me).

Yea, that is usually how fake behaves. You buy a working card but it fails quickly. so you point fingers away from the SD card itself.

[Mahjik]

Originally posted by deaddoof:

Originally posted by Mahjik:

I don't discount there are a lot of "fake" or whatever they are referred to cards. Typically, those are the ones that just won't format at all on the Deck. When a card was working, and then fails quickly, I don't believe those fall into the "fake" category (at least not for me).

Yea, that is usually how fake behaves. You buy a working card but it fails quickly. so you point fingers away from the SD card itself.

If that's what you believe, that's great. IMO, there have been more failures on the Deck than other devices that I've seen to call them all "fake cards". I personally have not had a failure but I also likely use my Deck a lot less than most.

[Indianajonze]

Originally posted by Mahjik:

It's no secret that the Deck runs hot and the SD cards are subjected to a lot more heat than they are likely subjected to in other devices.

My GoPro would strongly disagree with this

[deaddoof]

Originally posted by Mahjik:

Originally posted by deaddoof:

Yea, that is usually how fake behaves. You buy a working card but it fails quickly. so you point fingers away from the SD card itself.

If that's what you believe, that's great. IMO, there have been more failures on the Deck than other devices that I've seen to call them all "fake cards". I personally have not had a failure but I also likely use my Deck a lot less than most.

https://www.eetimes.com/counterfeit-sd-card-problem-is-widespread/

You do realize there are programs to test your sdcard. Right?

https://www.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Miscellaneous/H2testw.shtml

The only way to know is to write the full storage and read it back.

[Mahjik]

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[bvcelari]

I doubt the amazon allows to sell "fake" storage sd cards. And in one case, I even talk with Kingston support about it, so if it is fake, Kingston was supporting it.

I switched to a Samsung SD card, let's see how does it go, but it is really unusual than playing 1 ~ 2 hours at day woudl break the SDCard in less than a month.

If the overheating is breaking it, then it is something that Steam Deck should share and fix. Or at least stop selling the ones with 64GB cause the only one way to play with those is using an SD card.
If I could, I would change mine 64GB one right for a bigger one in a blink, this one is not usable like this.

[Mahjik]

Originally posted by bvcelari:

I doubt the amazon allows to sell "fake" storage sd cards. And in one case, I even talk with Kingston support about it, so if it is fake, Kingston was supporting it.

My day job is with an Amazon company. I agree with you that they wouldn't "knowingly" sell fake SD cards but I won't say it cannot happen. My issue is that this community immediately jumps to "fake card" when something doesn't work. There is such a thing as manufacturing defects.

That being said, I do believe there are likely other circumstances that the Deck introduces which we (the community) do not yet understand or have the data that may challenge how some manufacturers build SD cards.

[deaddoof]

Originally posted by bvcelari:

I doubt the amazon allows to sell "fake" storage sd cards. And in one case, I even talk with Kingston support about it, so if it is fake, Kingston was supporting it.

I switched to a Samsung SD card, let's see how does it go, but it is really unusual than playing 1 ~ 2 hours at day woudl break the SDCard in less than a month.

If the overheating is breaking it, then it is something that Steam Deck should share and fix. Or at least stop selling the ones with 64GB cause the only one way to play with those is using an SD card.
If I could, I would change mine 64GB one right for a bigger one in a blink, this one is not usable like this.

Amazon is practically ebay.... So many sellers pretty much game the review system.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/19/amazon-sues-facebook-group-administrators-over-fake-reviews.html

Great. Get a RMA directly from Kingston. Kingston supply chain will ensure you grab a genuine card.

There is such a thing as manufacturing defects.

And companies does statistical analysis all the time. At a certain percent, companies will give up selling a product because defect rate is too high. As much I believe in corporations willing sell broken products, sdcard problem is too widespread to be explained by manufacturing defects

[jteir]

Same here, my Steam Deck has killed two Kingston Canvas Select Plus 512 GB cards for me. They lasted about one month each, playing on average 1-2 h per day. I started to wonder if the Steam Deck pushes the card too hard, considering that the card's rating is only A1 while a faster A2 rating is the recommended one. But then I have read people reporting similar problems also with the recommended cards (SanDisk Extreme, Samsung Evo and Canvas Go), while others don't have any problems, so it might be due to some fault in certain Steam Deck units.

[PopinFRESH]

Originally posted by jteir:

Same here, my Steam Deck has killed two Kingston Canvas Select Plus 512 GB cards for me. They lasted about one month each, playing on average 1-2 h per day. I started to wonder if the Steam Deck pushes the card too hard, considering that the card's rating is only A1 while a faster A2 rating is the recommended one. But then I have read people reporting similar problems also with the recommended cards (SanDisk Extreme, Samsung Evo and Canvas Go), while others don't have any problems, so it might be due to some fault in certain Steam Deck units.

The Steam Deck doesn’t have a “recommended” rating for A2 cards, and currently doesn’t support the features for an A2 card.

[jteir]

Originally posted by PopinFRESH:

The Steam Deck doesn’t have a “recommended” rating for A2 cards, and currently doesn’t support the features for an A2 card.

Sorry, you're right. The recommended cards are only lists by third parties, like online magazines and bloggers. According to those the Steam Deck has a maximum transfer rate of about 100 MB/s. The Canvas Select Plus I use had maximum read transfer rate of 100 MB/s and a write transfer rate of 85 MB/s, so I assume that the Deck runs it at its maximum rate all the time. Perhaps a faster card would have a longer life-time, as it would never be used at its maximum transfer rates with the Steam Deck.