Topic: Which Micro SD Card ?

Hi all. I’m new here.

I got a new switch (newest generation).
I’m tying to decide what kind of micro sd card I should get.

I’m tossing up between

512gb class 10 A1 (1) (I think it’s 98mb/s read speed)
Or
256gb extreme pro A2 (3) (170mb/s read speed)
Or
Then there switch Labeled micro Sd which is the same read speed as the class 10 98mb/s but it’s more expensive ? (Sounds like a gimmick).

Is there any benefits to having a fast card in the switch ? Will the switch load the games faster or does the motherboard read data at a certain rate and getting a pro card may be a waste of money ?

@hollowman614 The Switch hardware can only utilize UHS-I speeds, so you don't need to wast money on higher speed cards. If you buy UHS-3 because you might use it in a camera/phone after the life of your Switch, it will work in the Switch, but only at UHS-I speeds with the Switch hardware.

The Nintendo branded cards have no advantage (other than they look cool). The word ripoff could be used here 🤪

And class 10 is the same as UHS-I. I don't the tech reasons behind the two different names, but they are the same, or essentially the same.

EDIT: If you buy from Amazon, only buy name brands you know, like Sandisk, or Samsung. Only buy from pages with 50,000 or 100,000+ reviews and high star ratings. Amazon has lots of bogus sd cards otherwise (at least that's the deal in north america and europe)

I recommend getting the a 400 GB or 512 GB card. I got a 400 GB card after filling a 256 GB.

And remember, when you new micro sd cards in the Switch, or any device, they actually only have, like, 90% of the advertised free space available. I don't remember the technical reason for this, but it's a thing. So, a new 256 GB card will show about 230 GB, and a 400 GB card will show about 360 GB free space.

Thank you for your response WoomyNNYes.

I think I’ll go for a 512gb USH-I that does about 98MB/s

@WoomyNNYes To cut a long story short, the actual size of Micro SD cards is different from the advertised size as manufacturers advertise the main size using gigabytes (GB) which is different from the actual propriety format and tend to round up the sizes.

For example, on Switch a 200GB card will give you 183GB in reality, while a 400GB card will give you 366GB.

I Just get the Nintendo branded 64 GB just to be safe.

@Apportal The nintendo branded cards are just UHS-I cards. There's no added/special performance. If you look at the nintendo cards on best buy, or anywhere, they have speed class I label on the card.

Thanks @Yoshi87!

I bought a Samsung Evo 256 gig card with my Switch V2 from amazon back in Dec 2019. Love it.

Most Switch games aren’t very large. My biggest game is BOTW and that’s only 14.4 gigs. I have 13 games installed and I still have 130 gigs free.

Now if you’re buying games like the Bioshock Trilogy and NBA 2K you may wanna get a 400-512 gig card. Those games are closer in size to PS4 and Xbox One games.

@TheRedComet
What’s the read speed on your card and do you have long waiting times between loading ?

@Yoshi87
Yes this is true. It’s just the way the operating system calculates it. If you put a memory card in a pc and go properties, you’ll see it actually is the size it says it is. You need to look at the numbers in the brackets.

For example;
A 200GB card would show as 183 but then in brackets it says (200,234,443) Etc.

Get the sandisk 400gb don't get the 512gb the price you pay for it isn't worth it. Unless your getting a 1tb that would be different.

@hollowman614

100MB/s. There are faster cards but from what I understand the Switch doesn’t utilize the higher speeds they are capable of.

My load times are decent. Not quite as fast as internal memory but certainly faster than a Switch game card.

The game you’re playing makes a huge difference. Most Nintendo published games are heavily optimized and load times are very short. BOTW probably has the worst load time out of my entire library and it’s worlds better than most PS4 or Xbox One games.

Thank you everyone.

I purchased a 512gb LEXAR USH-1 (class 10) for $133 AUD

will see how that goes