Upgrading my 64GB Steam Deck with a 1TB NVMe SSD
IThe recentlyneed orderedfor amore 64gbstorage space on the Steam Deck fromseems to be a universal issue. I've found myself in the same boat after getting my hands on a 64GB model during the Steam Summer Sale. ItWith wasjust 10%a offfew butgames salesinstalled tax is 19% so... After installing (Hades, Disco ElysiumElysium, and Hollow Knight,Knight), I wasfound alreadymyself hitting the storage limitlimit. I decided it was high time for an upgrade.
Step 1: Preparing for the gamesUpgrade
I ordered a Sabrent 2230 M.2 NVMe Gen 4 1TB drive from Amazon. TheIf next day it arrived and I prepared my Steam Deck for an upgrade.
After removing the 8 screwsyou're in the backsame plate,boat prying it open wasn't easy. Youand need to expand your storage, here's how I navigated the process.
Before you get started, make sure you have a prying tool - a guitar pick or something strongsimilar andwould thin like that. Lucky for medo. I foundused a prying tool from an iFixIt kit.kit I had on hand. It's also essential to have a compatible screwdriver for the backplate screws.
Step 2: Opening the Steam Deck
YouOnce havethe new drive arrived, I started by removing the 8 screws from the back plate of the Steam Deck. Prying it open was the next challenge. The best place to start prying itis from the top, near the right bumper (R1). Trust me on this one; I madelearned the mistakehard ofway and caused some minor cosmetic damage by trying to pry it from the bottom and left sidessides.
Once Iyou've think that caused some minor cosmetic damages onpried the plastictop case. Once it is pried open fromopen, the top,rest thencomes itapart ispretty easyeasily. to continue from there.
You haveRemember to disconnect the battery as well just to be extra safe (and also pressingpress the power button multiple times just to exhaustensure all capacitors ofare power)drained. asThis hotwill swappinghelp ato driveprevent mightany causepotential damage to the steamdevice or the drive.
Another
Step issue3: I had is thatInstalling the New Drive
There was another minor hiccup here. The electronic shielding on the old eMMC drive isdidn't notfit fittingon the new 1tb Sabrent drive (becausedue ofto the heat plate with thebranding. branding).To Allresolve this, I had to do is slightly teartore off the endend, aswhich it iswas attached with adhesiveadhesive, and wrapwrapped the new drive with it. AfterThen, that,it was just a matter of putting everything back together is straightforward.together.
Now
Step into4: makingPreparing the Recovery Flash Drive
Next up, you'll need to prepare a recovery flash drive,drive. I hadused my Windows gaming PCRufus for itthis soand downloaded the 2GB recovery image from the Steam website. I installedencountered Rufus.an Atissue thathere time,as the Rufus website was downdown, so I downloaded it from SourceForge.net.net Iinstead. downloaded the 2gb recovery image from Steam website as well. Everything went well and theThe image was written intoto mythe flash drive in about 10 minutes. I put it on my USB-C dock and inserted it in my dock.
Step 5: Booting into Recovery Mode
I botchedBooting the initialSteam button press to boot my deckDeck into recovery mode -can insteadbe ofa stoppinglittle totricky. Make sure you press the power button and leaving the volume down button, i did the other way around after I heard the startup sound. I immediately recognized my mistake and pressedkeep the volume down button instead.pressed Ituntil tookyou anotherhear 10 seconds (and no morethe startup sound)sound. forThen release the bootpower selectionbutton.
At this point, myI experienced a slight hiccup. My flash drive didn'wasn't appearrecognized in any of the boot options.
I think I didmight somethinghave wrongaccidentally on flashing my drive there (maybeflashed it was flashed in MBR instead of GPT?).GPT. IUsing hadanother, anotheralbeit spareslower, flash drive so I used that instead,fixed the onlyproblem. issueIt istook thataround this one is very slow. Anyway, after 15 or 15-20 minutes,minutes Rufusdue is done and I reinsertedto the newslower drive inspeed.
The Steam Deck controls notdidn't workingwork onin the recovery OS, so I just had to use the touch screen for everything.touchscreen. The process took quite a longwhile, timeapproximately and40 manyminutes, timesdue I thought thatto the slow flash drive wouldn'tspeed.
Step again6: becauseRestarting the screenDeck isand justFinalizing frozen for a long time. The whole reimaging process probably took 40 minutes mainly because of the flash drive's speed.Setup
After the recovery process was finished,complete, I restarted the DeckDeck. andThe sawpresence of the Steam Deck logo which is signconfirmed that the Steamdevice Deck is finallywas booting up from the drive. I removed the dock and was greeted with the setup screen.screen Thenext.
Interestingly, the Steam Deck's controls aredidn't somehowwork notinitially, working, notbut the joysticktouchscreen nordid. touchpadsAfter nor buttons. Only the touch screen worked. Apparently this is a known issue and you just have to gogoing through the installsetup process likeand this until it can connectconnecting to the internet for updates, the controls started working perfectly.
Conclusion
And voila! My Steam Deck was upgraded successfully to 1TB storage, and update. After that, everything wasruns flawlessflawlessly and fastfast. This has allowed me to install much larger games such as Witcher III and Ieven finallytest haveout 1tbDiablo storageIV. onThe myprocess Steammay Deck.be slightly tedious, but it's well worth it for the extra space. I'm already thinking ifabout Ithe wouldpotential everof expand withadding a memory cardcard, but maybethat aftermight be a project for another day once I finishget through my gamecurrent gaming backlog.