The best Micro SD cards for Steam Deck 2025
High-capacity, high value memory cards for US and UK.
Arguably the most important thing when gaming on Steam Deck is making sure you've got enough storage to actually install games - that's why you need one of the best Micro SD cards for Steam Deck to slot in to your console. A couple of our favourites are the 512GB Amazon Basics in the UK and the 1TB Samsung Evo Select in the USA, although we've rounded up a range of options for you to consider below.
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.
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 Integral and Kingston for some high performance Steam Deck cards for reasonable money, although we do see the likes of Samsung, SanDisk and Amazon Basics creep in from time to time.
| Buy from Amazon UK | Rating, Max Read Speed | Price | Value | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best Value 128GB Steam Deck Micro SD Card | 128GB Kingston Canvas Go! | A2, 170MB/s | £10.38 | 8p/GB |
| Best Value 256GB Steam Deck Micro SD Card | 256GB Kingston Canvas Go! | A2, 170MB/s | £18.48 | 7p/GB |
| Best Value 512GB Steam Deck Micro SD Card | 512GB Amazon Basics | A2, 100MB/s | £35.73 | 7p/GB |
| Best Value 1TB Steam Deck Micro SD Card | 1TB Kingston Canvas Go! | A2, 170MB/s | £85.78 | 9p/GB |
| Best Value 1.5TB Steam Deck Micro SD Card | 1.5TB Integral UltimaPro Premium | A2, 100MB/s | £129.95 | 9p/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 TeamGroup's Pro Plus cards, which are always a safe pick, we've opted for PNY's Pro Elite Prime cards which offer extremely good value too.
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 - and the first A2-rated memory cards are now available in this size. 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 PNY Pro Elite Prime | A2, 200MB/s | $19.79 | 8¢/GB |
| Best Value 512GB Steam Deck Micro SD Card | 512GB TeamGroup Pro Plus | A2, 160MB/s | $29.99 | 6¢/GB |
| Best Value 1TB Steam Deck Micro SD Card | 1TB Samsung Evo Select | A2, 160MB/s | $79.99 | 8¢/GB |
| Best Value 1.5TB Steam Deck Micro SD Card | 1.5TB PNY Pro Elite Prime | A2, 200MB/s | $109.99 | 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 pricey £69/$79, I can recommend a cheaper alternative from Anker that ticks all the right boxes too. It's £46/$40, 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, one USB-C and two USB-A ports. The dock is made from metal, holds the Deck upright comfortably and works flawlessly, so it's well worth considering.
If you want to connect the Steam Deck (or indeed, your laptop) to a monitor or monitors, then you can also get quite outstanding docking stations these days. This $112 Baseus Docking Station has been what I've been using over the past few weeks, and it provides a lot of benefits - not least being able to connect up to three monitors, gigabit ethernet, 3.5mm audio and four USB peripherals, plus 100W of power, all through a single USB-C cable.
For portable use, chargers become more critical accessories, and here I have a recommendation that 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.
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 Bluesky.