How to choose the best micro SD for Steam Deck

Specifications of the micro SD slot on the Steam Deck

The micro SD slot on the Steam Deck itself is a UHS-I slot.

Therefore, the specifications of the compatible micro SD are also naturally determined.

UHS-2 or higher micro SD cards are not required

As long as the micro SD slot in the Steam Deck is UHS-I, even if a faster micro SD card such as UHS-2 is used, the media speed cannot be achieved due to the performance limitations of the slot. Therefore, there is almost no advantage to using UHS-2 or other high-speed versions of micro SD.

For example, SanDick micro SD, the standard for high-speed micro SD, has multiple grades according to transfer speed, but if you are only considering use with Steam Deck, choosing "Ultra" will not be a problem.

How to choose among UHS-I class micro SD cards

Basically, there is no problem in choosing any micro SD card from a well-known manufacturer in the UHS-I class, as long as it can provide a transfer rate close to its specifications.

However, be aware that micro SD cards from cheap Chinese manufacturers sold on Amazon and eBay may only have UHS-I printed on them, but the actual cards may not conform to the UHS-I standard.

The read speed is especially important to note. Because Steam Deck is designed to play games, the specs place more weight on reading than writing.

However, the faster the read speed, the faster the game stored on the micro SD card will load, but for some games, the CPU or GPU may be the bottleneck rather than the storage read speed, and there are cases where the performance of the micro SD card does not make a big difference. In some cases, the performance of micro SD does not make a big difference.

This is the micro SD card you can't go wrong with