MicroSD playing cards are about to get a complete lot sooner, as Samsung has simply introduced that it has a tiny slice of storage within the works that’s considerably faster than a SATA SSD. However maintain on earlier than you make plans to fit one into your Steam Deck, or any present handheld gaming gadget for that matter, as there’s a giant catch.
Whereas lots of the greatest handheld gaming PC choices have a high-speed NVMe SSD as commonplace, additionally they normally have a microSD slot to broaden storage. Likewise, whereas the unique entry-level Steam Deck had an eMMC storage drive, it additionally had a microSD slot to broaden storage additional. That slot is nice for simple expandability, however even one of the best microSD playing cards high out at round 200MB/s.
Comparatively, Samsung claims its new card can hit a sequential learn pace of 800MB/s, which on the floor makes it appear to be a great handheld improve. To place that determine into context, even the quickest 2.5-inch SATA SSDs high out at round 550MB/s. The pace of Samsung’s new microSD card is what we’d count on from a low-end PCIe 3 NVMe SSD, or an exterior USB 3.2 Gen 2 drive.
The issue is that this new Samsung microSD card makes use of the SD Specific interface, and this requires your host gadget to additionally assist SD Specific to be able to get these sooner speeds. SD Specific principally offers you a lane of PCIe bandwidth on your SD card, and the newest model makes use of the PCIe 4 interface, theoretically supplying you with round a most of 2GB/s of bandwidth, with round 1GB/s on the earlier PCIe 3 bus.
SD Specific has been doing the rounds as a normal for years, however few units have been launched that assist it. Certainly, like most units with microSD card readers, the Steam Deck, Asus ROG Ally, and Lenovo Legion Go don’t assist SD Specific, and as a substitute use the older UHS-II interface, which tops out at 312MB/s. That doesn’t imply you possibly can’t use this new Samsung microSD card on these units, but it surely received’t carry out any sooner than a top-speed UHS-II drive.
That’s a disgrace, because the burgeoning handheld market is making it more and more clear that there’s now a necessity for high-speed storage that you may simply slot into your machine. It’s tough to justify an 800MB/s drive on your digital digicam, but it surely’s completely justifiable for a video games console. You may improve the NVMe SSD in your Steam Deck, after all, however provided that you’re ready to take your handheld aside. It will be actually useful to have the ability to simply slot in a card that runs at 800MB/s.
Samsung hasn’t revealed a value or launch date for its new SD Specific microSD card, but it surely says it’s going to have a 256GB capability and can be “made out there for buy later this yr.”
Within the meantime, in the event you’re trying to get a deck for your self, be sure you learn our Steam Deck OLED overview, and in addition try our information to one of the best Steam Deck equipment, the place we cowl SSD upgrades, microSD playing cards, and a complete lot extra.
