The best SSDs for the Steam Deck

Valve currently have three Steam Deck models on offer: you've got the standard 256GB LCD variant (basically no longer in production), the 512GB Steam Deck OLED, and a beasty 1TB edition of the latter. All of them are lovely handheld PCs, but whether you've got one of these or you invested earlier in a smaller model, you might still be itching for a little more capacity to make that 32-hour flight to New Zealand a lot more bearable. At this point you have two options: a microSD card, or for storage with more clout, one of the best Steam Deck SSDs.
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The best SSDs for the Steam Deck

Ditch that small default drive for something meatier

[The current best Steam Deck SSDs, arranged on top of a Steam Deck OLED. The RPS Steam Deck Academy logo is added in the bottom-right corner.]

Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun

Feature

by Zak Storey
Contributor

Published on Feb. 20, 2026

2 comments

Valve currently have three Steam Deck models on offer: you've got the standard 256GB LCD variant (basically no longer in production), the 512GB Steam Deck OLED, and a beasty 1TB edition of the latter. All of them are lovely handheld PCs, but whether you've got one of these or you invested earlier in a smaller model, you might still be itching for a little more capacity to make that 32-hour flight to New Zealand a lot more bearable. At this point you have two options: a microSD card, or for storage with more clout, one of the best Steam Deck SSDs.

[[Corsair MP600 Mini on a white background]

**](https://zdcs.link/a07Xmp)

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Even with the ongoing memory shortages, there's a slew of drives to choose from. So, dear readers, to save you the hassle of going out and buying many, many, many SSDs and potentially ruining your own Steam Deck by repeatedly reinstalling the damn things, I've done exactly that for you, and benchmarked a whole host of 'em to find out which ones you should spend your hard-earned cash on. Here's how they're tested, and here's the list of winners.

The best SSDs for the Steam Deck

• Corsair MP600 Mini - the best SSD for the Steam Deck overall

• Crucial P310 - the best value SSD for the Steam Deck

• Seagate FireCuda 520N - the best Steam Deck SSD for reliability

• WD Black SN770M - the best Steam Deck SSD for availability

• Corsair MP600 Core Mini - the best budget Steam Deck SSD, when available

• Steam Deck OLED SSD - the best Steam Deck SSD out of the box

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• ****
• ****

| Corsair MP600 Mini
The best SSD for the Steam Deck overall | Check price at Corsair UK
Check price at Corsair US |

[The Corsair MP600 Mini SSD, sat on top of a Steam Deck.]

Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun

I can understand why this is Corsair's newest M.2 2230 portable handheld flagship SSD. It's seriously good. The Corsair MP600 Mini scores some of the best random 4K figures I've seen from this class of drive, which is important when game load times are dependent on those random 4K reads. Files aren't loaded sequentially when it comes to gaming, so the faster the 4K read time (a processor randomly picking data from different cells on the SSD), theoretically, the faster the load time. Basically, sequential speeds are marketing hype in this arena, maybe outside of downloads.

Still, that quick read time translated nicely to its overall performance in-game, with the MP600 Mini putting in a respectable shift of just 92.41s average load time across all three of my benchmark games. If you ever end up shuffle this over to something more desktop-like, like the new Steam Machine, it'll handle file transfers quite nicely as well.

As for pricing, right now you're looking at around £0.18 and $0.18 per GB, and general performance per second is around £1.89 and $1.89, respectively, as well, making it one of the most affordable SSDs on the list, and a big win given current market conditions.

One word of caution: it was the hottest drive on test, that may lead to some throttling later down the line. If it's peak British summer and your office is 45°c, do take that into consideration when you do go on a download rampage.

[Steam Deck SSD load time benchmarks for the Corsair MP600 Mini. Red Dead Redemption loaded in 65.7 seconds, Cyberpunk 2077 in 16.5 seconds, and Dragon Ball Sparking Zero in 10.1 seconds.]

Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun

Pros:

• Solid value both in the US and UK

• Outstanding random 4K read performance

• Good game load times

Cons:

• Runs hot

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• ****
• ****

| Crucial P310
The best value SSD for the Steam Deck | Check price at Amazon UK
Check price at B&H Photo Video |

[The Crucial P310 SSD, sat on top of a Steam Deck.]

Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun

It's a real shame that Crucial's consumer SSD business is being killed off so that owners Micron can focus on (you guessed it) AI data centres. Especially because the Crucial P310 is, relatively, extremely good value for money right now. Micron, for all their artificial dollar-chasing, are the ones that basically design and develop NAND flash, working closely with Phison on its controller tech as it does so. That means cutting-edge hardware was basically a given in every drive they launched. Whereas the Corsair MP600 Mini above is using Micron 176-layer QLC flash, this thing is on 232-layer QLC, which is faster, denser and more power efficient - and it really shows.

Temperatures were no less than 9 degrees cooler in testing, performance was only a few MB/s off on the random 4K performance, and sequentials too, were not far behind. Overall game times were respectable as well, unsurprisingly, pipping almost every other drive to the post on this list.

The big win, however (and weirdly, given the state of things) was pricing. With a super spacious 2TB capacity, the price per GB was just $0.12 and £0.11. That's almost respectable. Of course, because it is a 2TB drive, and it does cost more than smaller models, performance per second was a fair bit higher at $2.67 and £2.42 per second. But this is still an absolute corker of an SSD, and well worth your time if you're on the hunt for a 2TB model. We'll be sad to see it go. Sniff.

[Steam Deck SSD load time benchmarks for the Crucial P310. Red Dead Redemption loaded in 65.6 seconds, Cyberpunk 2077 in 16.2 seconds, and Dragon Ball Sparking Zero in 10.1 seconds.]

Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun

Pros:

• Exceptional value for a 2TB model

• Outstanding performance on every level

• Excellent thermals

Cons:

• Not long for this world

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• ****
• ****

| Seagate FireCuda 520N
The best Steam Deck SSD for reliability | Check price at Amazon UK
Check price at Amazon US |

[The SeaGate Firecude 520N SSD, sat on top of a Steam Deck.]

Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun

The Seagate FireCuda 520N is a bit of an oddity in terms of where it sits in the market. It's a fine drive, but not for the reasons you might suspect. One surprise, for example is that the hardware inside is largely identical to the stock SSD found in the Steam Deck OLED.

It has the same Phison E21T controller, the same 176-layer TLC NAND, and, near enough, the same performance as the OLED drives. That's by no means bad, but if you're looking at this and already have the 1TB version of Valve's handheld, you'll be gaining exactly zero performance for your troubles.

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