The best Micro SD cards for Steam Deck 2024
High-capacity, high value memory cards for US and UK.
Gaming on Steam Deck continues to improve as Valve polish SteamOS, developers implement game fixes and new titles are released - to say nothing of the release of the superlative Steam Deck OLED. However, having so many good games available means that the storage space on your Deck may be filled up rather rapidly - and as such, grabbing a cheap and capacious Micro SD card to expand your storage makes a lot of sense. This is especially true given the wizardry that Valve has performed to keep game load times nearly as fast on Micro SD as they are on the internal storage.
With that in mind, here are the best Micro SD cards for the Steam Deck and other PC handhelds like the ROG Ally X, all the way to 1.5TB (!) 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.
Click the links below to jump to our UK and US memory card recommendations, as well as our secondary Steam Deck accessory picks and some guidance on moving games from internal storage to a Micro SD card and back.
Best Steam Deck Micro SD cards UK
In the UK you'll find that 256GB and 512GB cards are the best value in comparison to everything else on the market, but smaller (128GB) and larger (1.5TB) options are within the same ballpark when it comes to pence per gigabyte. It's a mix between either SanDisk, Integral and Kingston for some high performance Steam Deck cards for reasonable money.
| Buy from Amazon UK | Rating, Max Read Speed | Price | Value | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best Value 128GB Steam Deck Micro SD Card | 128GB Integral Ultima Pro | A2, 180MB/s | £11.84 | 9p/GB |
| Best Value 256GB Steam Deck Micro SD Card | 256GB Amazon Basics | A2, 100MB/s | £16.99 | 7p/GB |
| Best Value 512GB Steam Deck Micro SD Card | 512GB SanDisk Extreme | A2, 190MB/s | £42.99 | 8p/GB |
| Best Value 1TB Steam Deck Micro SD Card | 1TB Kingston Canvas Go! Plus | A2, 170MB/s | £77.97 | 8p/GB |
| Best Value 1.5TB Steam Deck Micro SD Card | 1.5TB Integral Ultima Pro | A2, 100MB/s | £154.99 | 10p/GB |
Best Steam Deck Micro SD cards USA
American retailers have a wider range of Micro SD cards than the UK equivalents, so our recommendations here are slightly different. As well as Silicon Power cards, which are always a safe pick, we've opted for TeamGroup's Pro Plus cards which offer extremely good value in the higher capacities.
256GB, 512GB and 1TB cards are all pretty close when it comes to cents per gigabyte, while 1.5TB (!) cards are currently discounted to similar levels - though the early SanDisk Ultra A1-rated model isn't as speedy as our other recommendations at more modest sizes. We've removed 128GB cards for now as they were about the same price as 256GB cards, but we'll keep checking prices here and re-add this category if needed.
| Buy from Amazon US | Rating, Max Read Speed | Price | Value | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best Value 256GB Steam Deck Micro SD Card | 256GB Samsung Evo Select | A2, 160MB/s | $25.99 | 10¢/GB |
| Best Value 512GB Steam Deck Micro SD Card | 512GB TeamGroup Pro Plus | A2, 160MB/s | $32.99 | 6¢/GB |
| Best Value 1TB Steam Deck Micro SD Card | 1TB TeamGroup Pro Plus | A2, 160MB/s | $69.99 | 7¢/GB |
| Best Value 1.5TB Steam Deck Micro SD Card | 1.5TB SanDisk Ultra | A1, 150MB/s | $99.99 | 7¢/GB |
Essential Steam Deck accessories
Besides an SD card and a case (which Valve helpfully provide), what's the most essential accessory for the Steam Deck? If you want to use the Deck more like a desktop computer, then a dock is ideal - it converts the single USB-C port into multiple USB ports for connecting peripherals like a mouse, keyboard and monitor, while also providing USB-C passthrough to keep the Deck charged.
While Valve's official Deck Dock is now available at a pricy £69/$79, I can recommend a cheaper alternative from iVoler that ticks all the right boxes too. It's $41/£36, significantly cheaper, and has largely the same features as the official version. There's HDMI 2.0 for a 4K 60Hz or 1440p120Hz output, 100W power delivery, ethernet and three USB-A ports. (The official Dock has the same ports plus a DisplayPort 1.4 connector.) The dock is made from metal, holds the Deck upright comfortably and has worked flawlessly in my testing - so it's well worth considering in my view.
For portable use, chargers become more critical accessories, and here I have a recommendation that recently arrived from Baseus. It's a 100W GaN (Gallium Nitride) charger with four ports, allowing you to charge the Deck and Deck OLED at full speed (65W) and still have enough grunt left over for other devices like phones, tablets and smartwatches. A UK version sadly isn't available, but US ($42) and EU (€40) models are and come highly recommended.
How to move games to the SD card on Steam Deck
So once you've decided on a micro SD card for your Steam Deck, just how are you moving things around? It's really easy, with only a couple of menus to navigate.
Hit the Steam button and bring up the sliding menu, then choose settings. From here scroll down the settings menu until you get to the storage option. In this menu, you can press the Y button to initiate moving software from your internal drive to Micro SD, or vice versa. You can even press X when highlighting the two storage options to set your preferred default install location.
When you eject the Micro SD card, your games installed to that card will disappear from Steam - and when you reinsert it, the games will reappear. This unlocks the door to having different cards with different games; you could easily load up one card with your favourite multiplayer titles, and the other with singleplayer games for example. Of course, going with a higher capacity card means no swapping and an overall simpler solution.
We're looking to run some performance tests on these cards in the near future, but our experience running game load tests on PC and Switch should hold us in good stead in the meantime.
Got any questions about Micro SD cards on Steam Deck that we haven't covered here? Do let us know in the comments below, or talk to @wsjudd on Twitter.