I got the 64gb and swapped in a 1tb nvme later on when I found a cheap one
the 64gb is an emmc in the same form factor as the nvme so probably doesn't perform much better than the sd if at all.
this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2025
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just watched a few videos on youtube about ssd vs sd card and it isnt all that bad unless i play some fast paced game
the one game I felt might be affected is spiderman where you can traverse fast enough that the map streaming bottlenecks. even long loading screen games are way faster than back in the day
The 64GB drive is indeed rough. I had massive troubles downloading, updating, and launching games, even with a large fast SD card. The only thing that ever truly fixed it was swapping to my current 512GB SSD.
256GB would be fine though if OP can manage to snag one. It'll be a bit tight if you want to have multiple modern AAA games installed, but most everything else will run comfortably on an SD card.
You can also always upgrade the SSD - it's just a specific type of m.2
yep but with the type of games I play, they wont fit in. 512gb SD card is barely affordable for me. Can't think about a SSD
Sure, but something you could save up for - 512gb SD card is ~$60USD, 512gb M.2 is ~$50USD
So no real price difference - just a little hassle disassembling and installing SteamOS
512GB SD card from Samsung or sandisk costs $50 in my country whereas those micro SSDs start at $120 for some reputable brands like Kingston
I have all my games on my SD card and still filled up the 64 GB internal storage. Yes you read that right. I guess shaders have to go on it (and OS)
What kind of games do you play?
Top games: Maze Mice, Inscryption, Slots & Daggers, Megabonk, Is This Seat Taken?
I symlinked the shaders to the SD for a friend and that seemed to work fine.
Any docs/guides for that?
Just to note, and by no means is this a common issue I've seen, but I recently had the SD card I had in mine (a legit Samsung card, 512gb) just randomly corrupt itself so all the games installed on it couldn't be seen by the Steam Deck anymore. That also lead to a bonus issue where the Deck thought the games where still installed whenever I tried to reinstall them and them not booting once they had been reinstalled, and at least one of them games (once I fixed that problem) still occasionally needs me to verify the installed files so it can reaquire one before the game will load
I did this, and I have never had any issues. I have mainly been playing BG3 to be honest, but it runs great on the 64gb for me.
I watched some youtube video where he used that set up but the cache and stuff was filling up the internal drive.
Possibly it is filling up the drive. Honestly, I have not checked my settings or storage in a long time.
I have been playing like this since BG3 came out. I also occasionally play other games on the deck. So far, no issues. If I run into a problem, I'll have to see about clearing space then.