this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2023
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Steam Deck

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34
What are your must-have accessories? And … How I’m achieving 4TB+ on my Steam deck (forum.stellarcastle.net)
submitted 1 year ago by Dax87@forum.stellarcastle.net to c/steamdeck@sopuli.xyz
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[–] danwardvs@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

I have a thought, coming from Raspberry Pis that use a microSD card as their main disk. People would report that heavy usage of an SD card would wear it out, particularly writes. Does Steam or the OS do any writing to the disks while playing from them? If so, unless you’re downloading new games, mounting in read-only mode might extend their lives a bit. Again, just a thought and maybe it’s not an issue since it’s primarily reads being done, or maybe it’s crossed your mind already.

[–] yesmeisyes@sopuli.xyz 5 points 1 year ago

I work in a store that sells computer parts and we do pretty many sd card warranty replacements where the customer states that it was used in a steam deck and died in less than a year of use. So in my view the cards dying is true.

[–] Dax87@forum.stellarcastle.net 3 points 1 year ago

Good thought. I see some potential issues though.

I'm not well versed in how steam handles things like saves, configs, etc. I would think if those are saved in the steam apps folder, then they are indeed written on the location the game is saves. RO would also prevent updates as well.

Overall I think the writing to disk is much less of a concern than say having a whole OS on there.

Does RPi's Raspbian support any boot moad like "toram?". I have no idea what size those OSes are for a pi, but I wonder if things like that would help too. I know some OSes are designed to be less write-intensive to prevent some of this as well.

[–] aesopjah@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago

Depends on the game, but there's going to be written sectors no matter what I would think. From Save games to generating terrain in things like Minecraft. It would be interesting if they could do a paired folder thing where all the writing would be done to the OS drive and read from the SD.

That being said, I think the wear will be much less than on the RPi since it's not running the actual OS off of it, not that I have anything to back up that theory...

[–] aesopjah@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Kickstand of some kind is really nice. And the belly stand things make it more comfortable to play laying down. Nice simple additions, but useful in the day to day

[–] fades@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Could you share the belly stand you’re talking about

[–] aesopjah@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I 3D printed some. I'm going to modify one so it slips over the Deckmate's kickstand.

I assume there are buyable versions, although I didn't find any in a cursory search just now

[–] fades@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago

Oh wow!! Cool concept, at least I know what I’m looking for. Thank you!

[–] Varyl@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 year ago

Throwing my hat in here, would love to know the answer too.

[–] cron@feddit.de 3 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I would not buy three vor four expensive SD cards, but rather an external SSD. The 4TB models are pretty affordable and would offer plenty of storage. Micro SD cards are more expensive per TB and can easily snap when handled poorly.

Downside of the external SSD approach is that you cannot charge and play at the same time, so you would need to copy a game from external storage to internal before starting to play.

[–] aesopjah@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago

For a mobile platform, I'll take the agility over the storage capacity and longevity. But to each their own

[–] Dax87@forum.stellarcastle.net 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I feel this, however, as you alluded to, there is no product they I'm aware of that attaches nicely to the steam deck, that has a 2280 slot, and has PD passthrough, and a stand. If you find one I'd love to know about it.

The SD cards are a nice touch for us anyway because my girlfriend and I can swap games without having to sacrifice the whole SSD.

Plus these were roughly 54 dollars each. Not horrible considering the cheapest 4tb nvme is 150. So I'm not sad about it.

[–] rDrDr@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Where did you get 1tb SD cards for 50 bucks?

[–] Dax87@forum.stellarcastle.net 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Should be linked on the original post, https://a.co/d/i7rtkAb

[–] rDrDr@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thanks

This one rated A2 should be better, but both say not for handheld gaming. Reviews seem good though.

https://a.co/d/cAl93sw

[–] Dax87@forum.stellarcastle.net 1 points 1 year ago

Nice find!! Yeah I haven't had any issues with them for gaming. I only hit the order button when I saw a reviewer say it worked just fine on the steam deck.

[–] astraeus@programming.dev 2 points 1 year ago

Not only are they physically fragile, but the flash chips and file integrity on SD cards can be more inconsistent over time.

[–] jeanofthedead@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Who is buying expensive SD cards?