AA Valve loves to warn people about the risks of maintaining Steam Deck by doing it yourself, and that now extends to storage upgrades. In response to a PC Gamer article about the Steam Deck modification, Valve hardware designer Lawrence Yang warned not to update the device’s NVMe SSD. While technically possible, the M.2 2242 units (22mm wide by 42mm long) you often find in stores are hotter and more energy consuming than the 2230 (22mm x 30mm) models that the handheld had to support. You could “significantly shorten” the longevity of the system, Yang said, adding that you should not move the thermal pads.
The story of PC Gamer referred to the discovery of modder Belly Jelly (initially reported by Hot Hardware) that it was possible to install an M.2 2242 SSD on Steam Deck, albeit with some design sacrifices. There were already concerns that this could lead to overheating problems. Yang only explained why it is a bad idea and described the likely long-term consequences.
The alert can be a disappointment if you feel limited by Valve’s maximum 512GB storage and don’t think a microSD card (usually much slower than an SSD) is a suitable replacement. That said, it’s not shocking – mobile devices like this often have size and thermal limitations that make it impractical to upgrade at least some components.
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