Steam Deck microSD card question

[drsxzgsa]

Is it possible to swap a full microsd card with a new one and then replace the full one without having to redownload the games?

[Mahjik]

Possible yes, but you'd have to transfer the data from one SD Card to the other. Since the Deck only has one SD slot, you'd need a hub or something similar to have both cards in at the same time to transfer the data between the two.

[drsxzgsa]

Originally posted by Mahjik:

Possible yes, but you'd have to transfer the data from one SD Card to the other. Since the Deck only has one SD slot, you'd need a hub or something similar to have both cards in at the same time to transfer the data between the two.

I don’t want two in at the same time. I want to replace the full one with a new one so I can buy more games. So I’d like to take the full one out and put it back in when I want to play games on that card.

[requin93p_agf]

you can there are some SD cards that don't work on Steam Deck like this sony micro sd card

[thetargos]

Originally posted by drsxzgsa:

Is it possible to swap a full microsd card with a new one and then replace the full one without having to redownload the games?

You should copy/move the files in some fashion, and the card must be formatted in Ext4, so you should do it either under WSL or Linux native. After that, you can simply plug it into the SD and off to the races. You can hot swap SD cards (as long as you are not into a game that's in the card!!). Of this I have limited experience, though, swapping my 512 GiB with Steam games for a 128 GiB with ROMs for emulation.

[requin93p_agf]

https://youtu.be/KQQDhpbgkdY?si=QDJv3C43RSkIZMCM

[requin93p_agf]

genki steam deck

[Mahjik]

Originally posted by drsxzgsa:

Originally posted by Mahjik:

Possible yes, but you'd have to transfer the data from one SD Card to the other. Since the Deck only has one SD slot, you'd need a hub or something similar to have both cards in at the same time to transfer the data between the two.

I don’t want two in at the same time. I want to replace the full one with a new one so I can buy more games. So I’d like to take the full one out and put it back in when I want to play games on that card.

If you just "want to use two cards", you can. You can eject them while nothing is writing and switch them on the fly.

However, just keep in mind that by default, the compdata and shader files are kept on the local SSD. Depending on your Deck internal storage size and how much you put there, you'll have two SD's worth of shader cache files there.

You can use something like CryoUtilities to have the compdata and shader files exists where the games are installed to avoid that.

[drsxzgsa]

Originally posted by Mahjik:

Originally posted by drsxzgsa:

I don’t want two in at the same time. I want to replace the full one with a new one so I can buy more games. So I’d like to take the full one out and put it back in when I want to play games on that card.

If you just "want to use two cards", you can. You can eject them while nothing is writing and switch them on the fly.

However, just keep in mind that by default, the compdata and shader files are kept on the local SSD. Depending on your Deck internal storage size and how much you put there, you'll have two SD's worth of shader cache files there.

You can use something like CryoUtilities to have the compdata and shader files exists where the games are installed to avoid that.

Hmm. Sounds like an external SSD would be better??

[Mahjik]

Originally posted by drsxzgsa:

Originally posted by Mahjik:

If you just "want to use two cards", you can. You can eject them while nothing is writing and switch them on the fly.

However, just keep in mind that by default, the compdata and shader files are kept on the local SSD. Depending on your Deck internal storage size and how much you put there, you'll have two SD's worth of shader cache files there.

You can use something like CryoUtilities to have the compdata and shader files exists where the games are installed to avoid that.

Hmm. Sounds like an external SSD would be better??

That depends on you. I personally would view that as counter to having a portable setup. On my LCD, I used two different SD cards. I had the 256gb version. I never installed any game on the SSD so it was just the OS, and flatpaks I installed, and then the compdata + shaders. Never had a problem with space on the internal drive. I had two 512GB SD cards so about 35 games on one (larger games) and about 80 games on the other (smaller games).

When I bought the OLED model, I picked up a 1.5TB SD card so I'm no longer swapping cards.