tiny lemmy 

Micro SD card suggestions

c/steamdeck · u/penquin@lemm.ee · 19 points

Could anyone please suggest a good micro SD card that is reasonably priced and is great for the steam deck? You go to Amazon and you find a gazillion brand with many different prices. Plus all the horror stories I've seen online with all the fake storage people buy from Amazon. So, if you guys have a suggestion I'd really appreciate some links/names. I'm open for best buy and micro center and even Walmart if I needed to. I'm looking for a 1TB card and I don't care about the brand as long as it works well. Thank you all in advance.

Comments

u/penquin@lemm.ee · 2 points

I try to stay away from the Samsung site so I don't buy the new phone. Lmao

u/penquin@lemm.ee · 2 points

Holy shit, thank you so much. It even has a Qt UI which fits very well with my desktop. Ill definitely use it when I get a card.

u/InEnduringGrowStrong@sh.itjust.works · 2 points

So, A1/A2 is yet another scale they invented because, why not.

A2 is supposed to have more IOPS than A1, although in benchmarks, some A1s perform better.

I wouldn't worry too much about it tbh.

u/penquin@lemm.ee · 3 points

That's very annoying how complicated it is. Ok, U3 or V30. What about the A? Is it A1? A2? Or does that not matter.

u/otacon239@lemmy.world · 19 points

Honestly, I’ve always gone to a retail store if quality is a concern. Name brand SanDisks have literally never failed me. Just make sure you get at least U3/A2 class for speed.

This might help with understanding the labels on them: https://www.integralmemory.com/articles/memory-cards-understanding-the-labels/

u/InEnduringGrowStrong@sh.itjust.works · 13 points

So, the SD Association is absolutely fucking insane when it comes to giving labels to literally anything.

The Steam Deck supports UHS-1 microSD cards.

That's the name of the bus. There'salso UHS-2 and UHS-3, but they're backwards compatible with UHS-1, so that's whatever.

Speeds...

Some cards used speed "classes", like Class 10...

There's also U1 or U3 speeds (which is a speed rating independent of the bus. (A U3 cards is probably a UHS-1 card.

Some have a speed rated with a V, like V10, V30, etc.

They often have multiple labels too.

These can all be used to label the speed of a UHS-1 card:

**UHS Speed Class**

  • **U1**: 10 MB/s minimum write speed.
  • **U3**: 30 MB/s minimum write speed.

**Video Speed Class**

  • **V6**: 6 MB/s minimum write speed.
  • **V10**: 10 MB/s minimum write speed.
  • **V30**: 30 MB/s minimum write speed.
  • **V60**: 60 MB/s minimum write speed.
  • **V90**: 90 MB/s minimum write speed.

**Class 10**

  • **Class 10**: 10 MB/s minimum write speed (legacy).

Anyway, U3 is basically the same as a V30.

U3/V30 would be the minimum I'd get for the Deck. Price being the deciding factor for the rest.

I don't really care if the card ever fails, so brand was (mostly) irrelevant in my choice.

u/SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de · 7 points

Unrelated to the question, but I just wanted to note how surprising it was how fricking HOT sd cards get after you push a couple hundred GB of data onto them

u/adarza@lemmy.ca · 5 points

for the cards..

sandisk extreme ($139 at bby) is a good choice. the switch-licensed card is the same price, and i think it's the same card inside. the switch one also has a discount for bbyplus members (look on bby site for that).

the samsung pro plus costs a bit less and works well, too ($89 at bby).

for where to get them, safely..

buy in-store (or online for immediate pickup) from a major (b&m) retailer to avoid the potential problems with amazon's co-mingled inventory.

u/rotopenguin@infosec.pub · 4 points

The best place to buy Samsung cards is from Samsung's site, the best place to buy Sandisk cards is from … Western Digital. Sometimes they even have sales that approximate Amazon.

It's pretty safe to assume that you will get a real card from the horse's mouth.

u/01011@monero.town · 2 points

I've had no issues with genuine SanDisk micro sdxcs despite purchasing from several different sources. SanDisk currently has a 1.5tb micro sdxc for $99 on amazon. Wherever you purchase from use f3probe to verify the card - https://fight-flash-fraud.readthedocs.io/en/latest/introduction.html.