Topic: MicroSD Express

Yesterday's hot new rumor for Switch 2. MicroSD cards with 800-900 MB/s speed. With a costs currently around twice as much as standard microsd cards. Just a few thoughts.

1) I suppose this rules out an SSD for internal memory?
2) Currently the largest MicroSD Express card is only 256GB. Mildly troublesome for those of us who use 1TB+ microsd cards in their Switch.
3) Will the Switch 2 still utilize slower microsd cards or will a MicroSD Express card be the minimum for expansion memory?

https://shop.sandisk.com/products/memory-cards/microsd-cards/...

@Magician Ug. I guess, here we go again with waiting for larger capacity cards to hit the market and for their prices to come down.

You know, I bought a U3 400gb card for my switch assuming it would be somewhat futureproof. Guess I shouldn't be surprised its going to be sub optimal for Switch 2.

(and there better be an official switch 2 controller with analog triggers for racing games. My kingdom for analog triggers on a Nintendo console!😉)

I would actually hope for the Switch 2 to have an SSD and different storage options at launch

@Magician
What do you mean by "SSD" here? It has 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage included and it's plenty fast. There's no user replaceable SSD sure but microSD Express is also plenty fast enough and is designed to be replaceable. So I don't see the issue here

Are microSD Express cards more expensive than regular microSD cards? Well yeah. But they're more expensive because they're faster. Also the standard is backwards compatible with regular microSD cards so you should be able to use them.... although obviously with significantly degraded performance

Probably an SSSTC NVMe SSD like Steam Deck, because I doubt you could fit a bigger SSD inside a Switch 2

@MrCarlos46
Yeah, but to what end? The entire point of SD Express is that it exposes PCI Express lanes to the SD Card (or microSD in this case). And the internal storage being UFS 3.1 should be faster than most MicroSD Express cards. It's not the full width 4x PCIe 3 or higher lanes of NVMe but it's a hell of a lot faster than the eMMC in the Switch or indeed any SATA SSDs. These are more-or-less the same thing in all but name

So I'm a bit confused about what people are actually wanting out of this. Seems to me that "SSD" is just a bit of a buzz-word for "good" that people have latched onto. Would it be better if Switch 2 had NVMe storage? I mean, technically, sure.... but microSD Express, UFS 3.1 and indeed the Switch 2 physical games are going to be plenty fast enough

I guess for even faster speeds than most other storage drives, kinda like PS5 and Xbox Series X/S use SSDs.

@MrCarlos46
SD Class 6/V6: 6MB/s
SD Class U1/V10: 10MB/s (Switch external storage recommendation)
SD Class V30: 30MB/s
SD Class V60: 60MB/s
eMMC: ~200MB/s (Switch internal storage)
UFS 1.0: ~300MB/s
UFS 2.0: ~600MB/s
SATA: ~750MB/s (PS4/XBOne, if you replaced the mechanical storage with an SSD)
UFS 3.0: ~3GB/s (Switch 2 internal storage)
SD Express: ~1-4GB/s (Switch 2 expandable storage)
NVMe 3.0: 4GB/s (Steam Deck)
NVMe 4.0: 8GB/s
NVMe 5.0: 16GB/s

......... I don't think we should be worried about performance here. As I said, SSD is being used as a buzz word here. Functionally Switch 2 will have a storage sub-system that outclasses most PC portables currently on the market. Especially given it'll have dedicated file compression hardware

No need to go extremely crazy with storage type. At least something that can also be faster than the current Switch.

News is a couple days old, but...

Gamestop listing leak suggests 512GB microSD express cards are inbound in 2025.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/switch-2-accessory-skus-foun...

@Magician Yeah, that's great we're not going to be limited to 256GB express cards. 512GB+ would be better. I hope 512 is availabe for launch.

Any chance we’ll see different storage options for Switch 2 at launch similar to Wii U, like a 256GB model, a 512GB model, and possibly a 1TB model?