Arguably the most important thing when gaming on Steam Deck is making sure you’ve got enough storage to actually install games – that’s why you need one of the best MicroSD cards for Steam Deck to slot in to your console. A couple of our favourites are the 1TB Samsung Evo Select in the UK and in the USA, although we’ve rounded up a full range of options for you to consider below.
Here are the best MicroSD cards for the Steam Deck and other PC handhelds like the ROG Ally X, all the way to 2TB (!) in size. To make these judgements, we’re relying on our own testing plus careful examination of each card’s specs and price.
We settled on recommending only A2-rated cards or better where possible, as these denote a minimum level of random read performance which is key to reducing game load times. For reference, A1 requires a minimum random read of 1.5K IOPS, while A2 requires more than double: 4K IOPS. Finally, we’ve listed the maximum sequential read speed for each card, another indicator of performance.
In the UK there’s been a bit of a shift in MicroSD card prices, with 256GB to 1.5TB cards all costing around 7p per gig for a reputable unit. It’s a mix between some big names too, including Samsung, SanDisk and Lexar. 2TB cards are also now available, and only come at a relatively small premium – 9p per gigabyte.
American retailers have a wider range of MicroSD cards than the UK equivalents, so our recommendations here are slightly different. As well as TeamGroup’s Pro Plus cards, which are always a safe pick, we’ve opted for PNY’s Pro Elite Prime cards which offer extremely good value too.