If I didn’talready upgrade my Steam Deckwith a 2TB drive, I’d be buying the Crucial P310 on Cyber Monday. This is one of the better deals I’ve seen during Cyber Week, frankly, and if you have ahandheld gaming PClike the Steam Deck or ROG Ally, you owe it to yourself to upgrade the storage for a great price.
you may grab the2TB Crucial P310 on Amazonfor $181 right now. Regardless of how you look at the sale, it’s a great deal. That’s $84 off the list price, or 32% off, and it’s a similar price as the competition. The WD Black SN770M, for example,is $178 for 2TB, which is also a Cyber Week deal. Crucial is my top choice, though.
The Crucial P310 is a PCIe 4.0 solid-state drive, and the company claims sequential speeds up to 7,100MBps. That’s not quite peak PCIe 4.0 speed — read mySamsung 990 Pro reviewfor that — but it’s very close. Certainly, it’s fast enough for a handheld gaming PC. The drive also comes fit with firmware optimized forMicrosoft’s DirectStorage, so it shouldn’t run into issues in games likeRatchet and Clank: Rift Apart.
Although you’re able to technically use the P310 in any PC that supports PCIe 4.0 SSDs, this drive is best for a handheld due to its size. It’s a 2230 SSD, which means it’s much smaller than the typical 2280 size you see in desktops and laptops. 2230 SSDs are usually more expensive than their 2280 counterparts, but with this deal, Crucial is matching the 2280 competition.
For instance, theSamsung 990 Pro was $130 at 2TB, while the slowerWD Black SN770 is $114. I’d normally expect to spend over $200 on a 2TB 2230 SSD, but with this discount, the P310 is right in line with the 2280 options on sale.
Although it can be a little intimidating opening up your Steam Deck orROG Ally, replacing the SSD is surprisingly simple. After removing your microSD card and unplugging the charger, the process simply involves removing a few screws. If you’re a newbie to this kind of upgrade, I strongly recommend followingiFixIt’s guide.
Replacing the SSD itself shouldn’t take more than a few minutes. The more difficult part of the process is reimaging the Steam Deck. You’ll need to reinstall SteamOS on your Steam Deck, as well as reinstall your games — thankfully,Valve has a guideon how to do exactly that. For the ROG Ally, you can follow our guide onhow to install Windows 11or, ideally,reimage Windows through the ROG Ally BIOS.
Upgrading the storage in your Steam Deck or ROG Ally is one of the best (and simplest) mods you’re able to do. Although both devices allow you to expand your storage with a microSD card, SSDs are significantly cheaper. A 2TB microSD card, in the rare case you can actually find one, will run you close to $200 on sale.
