Migration to OLED Steam Deck

[TheL1GHTSiDE]

I purchased a 64gb Steam Deck a few months ago and upgraded it with a 1tb SSD.
I really like the changes in the OLED model and plan on getting the 512gb deck to upgrade it once again to 1tb. I'm going with the 512gb model because I don't want the anti-glare etched glass to interfere with the quality of the screen & I plan on installing a screen protector.

- Anyway, how would I migrate all my data to the new deck while preserving all data and customizations?
- Would a drive clone to the new deck work?
- What about pulling the internal ssd from the old one and installing it in the new deck?
- Does my old deck need to be on any specific OS version in order for it to work?

I will finish this with a feature request, a pre-installed, simple, and user friendly backup/restore utility. One that would make device to device cloning/migration easy as well as device to external hard drive backups that can then be restored. I know that there are many free and paid utilities or commands out there that would accomplish the same thing but they generally require a high level of knowledge or can result in loss of data if screwed up. This would be for all the non-tech savvy people (unlike me).

[PopinFRESH]

With the launch of the SteamDeck (OLED) models we will likely see the launch of SteamOS 3.5 with support for them. Assuming this is the case, then you should be able to simply move your current 1TB SSD to the new SteamDeck (OLED) model.

You will want to do the SteamOS update on your current SteamDeck (LCD) model before moving the SSD as the new SteamOS will likely be required for driver support of the new components (such as the new WiFi and BT chip). EDIT: Alternatively, if you have a USB-C ethernet adapter, or a dock with ethernet support, then you'd likely be able to just move the SSD over to the new SteamDeck (OLED) and use a wired connection to do an OS update for proper support of the new SteamDeck.

I'd doubt there would be any issue with installing the 512GB SSD that ships with your SteamDeck (OLED) model into your current SteamDeck (LCD) model if you are intending to sell it.

In regards to cloning doing a block-level clone to another 1TB SSD and installing that in your second deck should also work; however, they have previously discussed additional BIOS/UEFI updates and support for features such as SecureBoot, etc. which may throw a wrench in that notion if they have implemented changes in UEFI and/or implemented additional boot-time features like SecureBoot.

[TheL1GHTSiDE]

Thank you for your reply! While I don't foresee any issues cloning to the new deck it would be nice to get a solid confirmation that it would work as well as steps to resolve any issues that would arise if any. I would like to clone my current deck now and prep it for resale to help me pay for the new one but I don't want to get stuck with a non-working backup.

[PopinFRESH]

Confirmed by Pierre-Loup Griffais (Valve Dev) you can move the SSD over to the new SteamDeck OLED and it will work.

Originally posted by Pierre-Loup Griffais:

It should work once you've updated to the final 3.5 build that we're working on that includes Deck OLED support.

https://twitter.com/plagman2/status/1722751291603202292

[PopinFRESH]

Originally posted by TheL1GHTSiDE:

Thank you for your reply! While I don't foresee any issues cloning to the new deck it would be nice to get a solid confirmation that it would work as well as steps to resolve any issues that would arise if any. I would like to clone my current deck now and prep it for resale to help me pay for the new one but I don't want to get stuck with a non-working backup.

Just following up on this in regards to your other scenario. I tested wiping my original 512GB SSD that shipped with my Steam Deck, switched my Steam Deck to the dev test branch for SteamOS 3.6, and verified that it does not appear they've implemented any changes currently to the bootloader or BIOS/UEFI handoff.

I was able to do a block-level clone with the SteamOS 3.6 deployment and didn't have any issues booting it. So in theory if you wanted to do something like upgrade your SteamDeck OLED to a 2TB you should be able to update your SteamDeck LCD with aftermarket 1TB SSD to SteamOS 3.5.x when its released; then do a block-level clone to a new 2TB SSD and then install that into your SteamDeck OLED and be g2g with your current OS environment.

Otherwise if you are planning on sticking with the 1TB capacity you currently have, I'd just do what was outlined above and update to SteamOS 3.5.x on your SteamDeck LCD and swap it into the SteamDeck OLED.

[TheL1GHTSiDE]

I've been thinking while digging through the files on my deck. I really didn't do a lot of hard core customizations to my deck so I'm considering starting fresh on my new one and transferring a few files over.

I plan on selling my current deck as-is with the current 1tb drive installed. I ordered another 1tb nvme drive and plan on installing it in the new 512gb Deck OLED.

In terms of backups, I should be able to re-install and setup everything that I have installed on my current deck. EmuDeck has an import export tool that can be downloaded and used to backup all your saves and stuff. In PrismLauncher you can browse to your Minecraft world folder to make a backup of that. I don't have any important saves for GOG/Epic via Heroic games launcher so I didn't back any of that up. Although, I believe all the saves are located in the heroic folder.

I created an image backup of my deck just in case. I booted my deck into GParted to shrink the 800gb volume down, then made an image backup of the drive using clonezilla.
Afterward I changed my deck to the beta/preview channels to get it updated to version 3.5. You need to be in the preview channel in order to get the 3.5 update. Once on 3.5.2 I created a second image backup that I could fall back on just in case the first one doesn't work.

Just finished factory resetting my deck and have it ready for resale. Hopefully someone will find all this info useful to them.

[chrisloughnane]

This guy tried it out and everything worked
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-PMhPoKcSw