MicroSD playing cards are about to get an entire 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 machine for that matter, as there’s an enormous catch.
Whereas most of the finest handheld gaming PC choices have a high-speed NVMe SSD as customary, additionally they often have a microSD slot to increase storage. Likewise, whereas the unique entry-level Steam Deck had an eMMC storage drive, it additionally had a microSD slot to increase storage additional. That slot is sweet for straightforward expandability, however even the perfect microSD playing cards prime 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 seem like a perfect handheld improve. To place that determine into context, even the quickest 2.5-inch SATA SSDs prime 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 machine to additionally assist SD Specific with a purpose to get these sooner speeds. SD Specific principally provides you a lane of PCIe bandwidth in your SD card, and the most recent model makes use of the PCIe 4 interface, theoretically providing 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 typical 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 an alternative use the older UHS-II interface, which tops out at 312MB/s. That doesn’t imply you may’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 you can simply slot into your machine. It’s troublesome to justify an 800MB/s drive in 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 worth or launch date for its new SD Specific microSD card, but it surely says it is going to have a 256GB capability and can be “made obtainable for buy later this 12 months.”
Within the meantime, if you happen to’re trying to get a deck for your self, ensure you learn our Steam Deck OLED assessment, and in addition take a look at our information to the perfect Steam Deck equipment, the place we cowl SSD upgrades, microSD playing cards, and an entire lot extra.