5 Of The Best Storage Upgrade Options For The Steam Deck

The Steam Deck is a great piece of gaming hardware. Valve's handheld console is capable of playing some of the best and most demanding games of the modern era while you're on the go, and even play retro games that are increasingly harder to find. PC gaming has become both easier and more complicated, since there are even more options to consider with a Steam Deck now.

While the handheld console offers plenty of customization for how you play, it can be easy to fall into the habit of wasting money on unnecessary accessories. This is important to consider, particularly when there is one thing you should absolutely consider spending money on for your Steam Deck — storage upgrades. 

As good as the Steam Deck is, it doesn't have infinite storage. Since the appeal of the console is its ability to play AAA games like "Dead Stranding" and "Red Dead Redemption 2" on the go, it is very easy to run out of storage space quickly — even if you go for the version with the highest storage. If you're looking for a way to fit more games in your Steam Deck, here are the best storage upgrades you can get.

When it comes to upgrading your Steam Deck's storage, buying a microSD card is the easiest way to expand your library. The SanDisk Ultra microSD is a great example of expandable storage that won't break the bank. It's on our list of best SD memory cards for the Nintendo Switch for the exact same reason.

The SanDisk Ultra microSD series comes with a variety of storage options depending on your needs, from 16GB (which probably won't do much for the Steam Deck), to a whopping 1TB of storage — which is double the storage of the highest tier Steam Deck currently available. Do you need 1TB? That depends on your gaming needs, but it doesn't hurt to have that option. That being said, the 512GB version is currently on sale for $35 on Amazon (normally $60).

Plus, all the cards deliver transfer needs of up to 150MB/s, which is lower than some of the other options, but should be more than enough for Steam Deck games.

The key to a good storage upgrade is having a good balance between price and performance. Though you'd be hard-pressed to find a microSD card that performs so poorly it actually affects your gaming experience, the Samsung Pro Plus offers the best middle ground of fast load times and affordability. 

According to testing from Rock Paper Shotgun, games like "Shadow of the Tomb Raider" launch in less than 15 seconds on a Samsung Pro Plus microSD card, and otherwise load levels in an average of 16 seconds. Besides, Samsung is a reliable brand for PC hardware, as its desktop SSDs are known for offering superb read/write speeds and performance. 

The 512GB version of the microSD card, which would double the biggest-sized Steam Deck storage option, is $56 on Amazon right now. An additional 500+ GB of storage would give you plenty of options when it comes to downloading and playing games from your Steam library. 

A microSD will give your Steam Deck more storage, but once you run out of that storage, what then? The problem with microSD cards is they typically either give you high speed to launch games in a flash, or a lot of capacity — not both, unless you spend a lot of money. This is where SSD upgrades come in.

The SSD is the storage card built into your Steam Deck, which normally won't go above 512GB, but you can get up to 2TB of storage by swapping the SSD in the console. Be warned, though, that Valve advises against swapping out the SSD on the Steam Deck due to the problems it may cause — like overheating or buying the wrong SSD, because it is only the very specific and somewhat rare 2230 NVMe SSDs that are compatible.

One of those SSDs is the Western Digital SN530, which is compatible with the Steam Deck, so you are not taking any chances there. Plus, it offers 1TB of storage — twice that of the highest-tier Steam Deck, and its read/write speeds are higher than that of the base Steam Deck's storage. That should give users faster loading and launch times so you can get right to gaming faster than any other Deck.

If you want a microSD card that offers both a lot of storage and also speeds worthy of "Gran Turismo," look no further than the SanDisk Extreme microSDXC, which can go up to 1TB of storage and still delivers faster loading speeds than the 512GB Steam Deck's own SSD, with Rock Paper Shotgun reporting a 15.6 second loading time for "Shadow of the Tomb Raider" compared to the SSD's 15.9 seconds.

Those loading speeds are the real reason why you might want to choose this pricier version compared to the other and cheaper SanDisk card on this list. It is not a huge improvement, but if you really value every microsecond, then this is a storage upgrade world looking into.

Granted, this is a bit on the pricier side compared to other microSD cards, especially when it comes to the massive 1TB model, but you're paying for premium storage capacity and speed here. If you definitely need that much more storage, then the 1TB SanDisk Extreme microSDXC is available for $129 on Amazon right now.

When it comes to pure storage power that nevertheless still allows you to buy a microSD card down the line if you still need more space, you can do much worse than the Sabrent Rocket 2230 SSD. Again, this would involve changing the existing SSD card on your Steam Deck, so tread lightly unless you have the technical knowhow to replace the SSD.

If you're willing and able to do so, however, the Rocket 2230 offers 4,750MB/s read speed which is a nice upgrade from the Steam Deck's speed. However, it is the 1TB (or more) storage upgrade that will really make a difference, particularly if you have one of the lower-tier Steam Decks with less base storage. 

Plus, Sabrent's 2230 SSD is widely available, when a lot of similar NVMe SSDs are hard to come by these days. The Sabrent Rocket 2230 is available on Amazon for just $110 for the 1TB edition, which is a noticeable upgrade from even the biggest Steam Deck.