Have you upgraded your internal storage? How did it go? Did you reinstall steamOS from scratch or clone the original M.2/eMMC?
Before even using the deck I updated it, pre-downloaded the steamos onto a usb drive.
The install was very straightforward, highly recommended the upgrade. My only regret is is didn’t get the 1Tb drive
Exactly what I did. I went for the 1tb though. The storage prices for the deck are pretty outrageous and upgrading is pretty easy. So a 64gb deck + 1tb card comes out to be about the same as a 256gb deck.
Outrageous is a bit strong… There are companies charging way more than that for the same increase in storage…
I have a 512. I’ve heard it’s still worth it to upgrade, but I can load dozens of games with no issue and it’s less effort. If I have a large game I want to play (100gb+) I’ll probably upgrade.
Same. I have many installed games and play a couple of them at most at a time. I travel a lot and connection isn’t always guaranteed so I bought a large SD card to offload games I may want to keep with me, I ended up barely using it.
Same. I installed a bunch of games from my backlog, including a few big ones, but I still have more than 100GB left, both on internal and SD card. You’re fine as long as you uninstall the ones you’re done with for the time being. Just uh, check if Steam Cloud works for the saves, Dark Souls games for instance say it works but it doesn’t. Then again, maybe OP has a 64GB, in which case, he probably should.
Definitely buy an SD card though, it’s a quick upgrade.
Thought about it but it was honestly pretty easy to throw a 512gb sd card in and cheaper. Plus most if not all of the stuff on the deck is saved in the cloud not a big deal if it fails.
Yeah most games that work on the deck will be fine coming from a modern microsd card. Even Skyrim really would be fine. I’ve read reports that upgrading to some drives is causing too much heat, and tbh as much as I love tinkering - deck is perfectly made IMO. I’ll just swap out cards, even then I haven’t really needed to.
I decided it wasn’t worth it.
I bought the 256 GB deck. That filled up fairly quickly obviously and I looked at the alternatives. It turns out that if you buy the right SD Cards they’re basically the same speed as the SSD, so I just bought a 1TB Samsung EVO and it’s been great. Also, I didn’t have to lose the existing 256 Gb of space that I had and it was zero effort.
Maybe one day I’ll upgrade to a 2TB internal, or maybe I won’t.
While game loading times are about the same, I definitely notice a big speed difference when installing games on the SSD vs microSD.
I’ve been considering it, but tbh the 256+400GB SD card has been more than enough so far.
No i didn’t bother. 512gb plus my 1tb micro sd has been enough really. Besides, i have a full PC with shit loads of storage.
I replaced my 64 gig with a 1tb sabrent rocket. The speeds alone are worth it no matter what. Going to desktop and back is like magic. I always install from scratch though, more steps for less hiccups is the way I always look at it
Bought the 64GB version, ordered a certified to work with the Steam Deck M.2 512GB SSD and had absolutely no problem installing the thing. Plenty of HowTo’s on YouTube. Also re-installing SteamOS is easy. If I ever were to expand to 1TB or 2TB I would use CloneZilla to clone the contents instead of clean installing SteamOS again. My network traffic is not metered but it takes for ever to redownload the games.
I got the 64gb version in batch one, and immediately upgraded it with a 256gb ssd I had laying around from another system. It was pretty easy, and flashing the OS was trivial even in those early days, but I did find it difficult to get the EM shield to go onto the drive that I chose… It was a tight fit and took 10 minutes of tinkering to get it on there.
It’s turned out to be nice to have the extra internal space for doing things in the desktop mode (especially tinkering with emulation) just because, while the sd card is seamless for steam libraries, it adds some complexity and headaches for other software.
I’m on the verge of updating my 256GB to the 1TB Corsair MP600 Mini. I’ve done a lot of tweaking over the year I’ve had my deck, so I’m planning to try cloning the drive instead of doing a fresh install.
Just wanted to hear everyone else’s experiences with it.
I did upgraded mine from 64gb to 1TB. Apart from almost stripping a screw, the whole process was pretty easy. I reinstalled SteamOS because I didn’t have much on my deck anyway
I upgraded my 512 to a 2tb sn740 by using an external nvme enclosure and rescuezilla to clone the original drive. Had zero issues.
All I waited for was a decent deal on a 1TB ssd and it went smooth, aside from not plugging the battery back in fully the first time. I cloned as I didn’t want to bother with setup again.
No need, 256GB is plenty when you’ve got fast enough internet to download things when you need them. Plus I don’t usually tinker with my devices until they’re old and actually need it!
I just got the 64GB version and I plan to replace the SSD soon. I’ll reinstall steamOS, and before that I need to figure out what’s the best way to have encrypted data on it (e.g. credentials for communities etc) or even have Full Disk Encryption. Haven’t settled my mind on this but generally it’d be good to have the whole deck secure so in case it gets stolen nobody can empty my wallet on the steam store.