Is upgrading the ssd easy enough that it is worth the cost savings?
Finally decided I think I am going to get a Steam Deck. Decided to look at upgrading the hard drive, it is a little more compacted than I thought it would be. For those who have swapped, was it easy enough?
Was worth for me to upgrade 64GiB to 1TiB :)
Mandatory reminder to remove the microsd before opening the Deck…
It's mostly unscrewing covers and peeling stickers, if you can get a good savings that way I believe it's worth it.
MicroSD also is really not bad if you pick a fast, deck tested one. Lots of my non-primary games are stored there and still load acceptably for me
Primary games works fine too for me
It's pretty easy. Just remember to remove the microsd card before removing the back panel or it will snap the card in half
In twain
To shreds, you say?
Looks easy : https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Steam+Deck+SSD+Replacement/148989
Edit: Is it worth 30-60minutes of your time, the screwdrivers, maybe the spatchula, and reinstalling steamOS onto the drive?
Little pro-tip - I got a Corsair drive and tried putting it in external enclosure to copy to it, that didn't work.
These small Nvme drives are dram-less, so they borrow some memory from the host system. All of these drives have a fallback mode when they can't borrow host memory, which is slower. Apparently, the fallback mode is so well programmed that drive can crash during large write sessions.
It worked just fine once I put the new drive inside the Deck, and pulled data from the old drive sitting in the enclosure instead.
I did mine after watching a YouTube video. I thought it looked easy and when I tried it, it was.
Yes. You just have to copy your existing system to your new drive. I used dd for this. Afterwards resize your storage partition (the largest one) on the new drive. I used gparted for this for it's simplicity.
if you don't care about the content of the drive (just steam games and everything in steam cloud), you can basically just reinstall steamOS with the official image
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Steam+Deck+SSD+Replacement/148989
I work on computer hardware a lot, so I might not be the best judge, but this seems simple (If a bit tedious) enough for a normal person to accomplish.
Yeah, I was watching the video. The first thing that gave me pause was the, “drain battery to 25% as a charged lithium battery puncture can bee dangerous.”
And then I hate having to use the guitar picks to pry open stuff.
That said, I used to build my own computers. I have installed new SSDs in both of my ps5s. But it is not something I do often.
Honestly, you can half ass that shit. As long as you don't go hacking away at everything you'll be fine.
Just remember to remove the SD before opening!
Yes. 100%. It was very easy.
As others have said the microsd card is fine.
But if you plan to use the steamdeck in desktop mode, the internal drive can fill up kind of quickly with random stuff.
I thought it was easy enough to replace, but I used to be a computer tech in my old life.
I paid for the 1 TB model but it should be simple enough to upgrade the SSD. Think of it as a learning experience.
That's very important ! The general consensus is that the ifixit ones are fit for the task.
Ifixit seems to be exception to the rule that states anything popular brand for people who are not in the field is actually garbage.
Absolutely, the best upgrade you can make.
Have you installed a Linux operating system before?
The hardware swap is not difficult, but you do have to reinstall the OS on the new drive, so if you're not already familiar with that process it may be a hurdle. The good news is there shouldn't be any important data on it, so if you do have a problem you can just wipe it and start over.
I bought the original largest model, and in less than 6 months decided I wanted more than the 512GB. I wish I had saved the $200 and bought the cheapest model. There's no other appreciable difference.
The top end model has etched glare resistant glass on the panel, both on the old IPS displays and the newer OLED models.
My work sometimes comes with long hours of downtime in the outdoors with the sun shining, the anti glare glass is fantastic for that scenario. I know there are etched glass screen protectors, but I’ve seen one up close and didn’t look as clear as mine.
So, that’s at least one reason to go for it in my opinion.
Have you installed a Linux operating system before?
I have. I used to run OpenSUSE years ago, mostly stopped because I was an avid WoW player and I was never able to get it running.
I wondered if it would be a full reinstall, or if the deck had a separate OS drive.
If you have a drive enclosure or a large enough backup drive you can clone the old SSD with dd.
Linux is an easier install than windows nowardays.
It's not hard at all, if you've done any kind of tech disassembly before you should be good. Just make sure you don't strip the screws (don't use a screwdriver that's too small, make sure it's all the way in the screws before turning it).
You will have to either clone the drive or install SteamOS fresh on the new SSD from a USB drive. They may have fixed it, but originally the SteamOS installation/recovery USB had a software bug that would crash the wifi driver if you connect to a 5GHz wifi 6 network. So if you have a WiFi 6 network, I would suggest only connecting to the 2.4Ghz version of it until you've completed setup and downloaded updates.
If you clone the drive you don't have to worry about that, but sometimes after cloning you have to realize the cloned partitions to actually take advantage of the larger drive.
If you run into any of those issues and need help, feel free to reply to me here and I'll do my best to help out.
Yes, well worth it.
I see all the important tips in the comments apart from doing it with a discharged battery.
I had no issues when I did mine.
Seeing the discharged battery bit in the ifixit video is what gave me pause.
It's a precaution. If you were to damage the exposed battery it could cause it to heat up and probably catch fire.
You do no want a lithium battery fire in your house.
If you're going to do it make sure you have enough time to do it all in one go so you don't have to leave the back off.
It's not a long task, I think setting the blank drive up afterwards took longer than the actual drive swap
Its easy, you just have to not be stupid and do stupid things.