Take this one with a grain of salt, but Lexar has apparently announced it's releasing a new 'microSD Express' card for Switch 2.
This information was originally shared by Lexar China on social media (via Famiboards), with additional details revealing it's a "1TB express card" releasing in "mid- February". It's also being touted as a "NS 2 must-have".
As you can see in the graphic, there's a silhouette of what appears to be a Switch 2. There have already been ongoing rumours about the Switch 2 supporting microSD Express Cards with faster transfer speeds - to the extent there was even a GameStop listing earlier this month.
You can learn more about Nintendo's new system in our guide here on Nintendo Life. Nintendo will reveal more about the Switch 2 at its upcoming Direct broadcast, taking place on 2nd April 2025.
If we hear any updates, we'll let you know.
[source xiaohongshu.com, via famiboards.com, nintendoeverything.com]
Comments 52
"Let's brand this very generic 1TB MicroSD card "for Switch 2" so we can increase the price by 150%"
Sales department: "Very good idea!"
1 TB is too small if you carry over a large Switch 1 collection. How large a card does Switch 2 support?
@sanderev its an SD Express card. It’s almost a new format.
I actually filled up a 1 TB micro SD card on my Switch and recently bought a 1.5 TB micro SD card. I’m hoping we get express micro SD cards in bigger sizes, especially 2 TB.
Given the 2-tera SDXC I got last Prime Day (&@#% Bezos) was ~£150, down from £250+, I shudder to think what the equivalent Express card will cost.
I hope the top Type C port can be used to shuttle stuff on to/off from a flash drive - things could get a bit tight otherwise. Just made 4½ years with a Switch and I’m around 54 gigs off maxing out a 1.5-tera card… 💧
I hope that the build-in storage of the Switch 2 is big enough to start with
@X68000 Same format. It's still microSD, but the minimum read/write speed is higher. Before that you had UHS 1-3
Considering that my 1TB micro SD is almost full on Switch (and that's despite around one third of my collection being physical at least the last time I calculated it and having many physical games) more than an express one I'm interested in ones with a bigger size first and foremost but still, glad to see a 1TB express card coming - fingers crossed the internal storage will be bigger and how I wish there were at least two slots for micro SD cards instead of one on Switch 2!
@Rhaoulos I did say almost. Lots of microsd hardware will not be able to access it's performance gains.
It's giving us SSD performance gains in a micro sd card. It's a big step up .
@Rhaoulos
UHS 2 and Express actually are different formats though.
They have additional connection pins that allow for faster data transfer speeds, but have the same pins as the original cards so they can still be used on older devices that lack UHS2 or Express support.
This'll be an issue with Switch 2, people will put in old microSD cards and either get slower load times, or the cards outright won't be supported.
I will buy the biggest most expensive express sd card day one to set me up for the next gen.
The last thing I want is to continue with current sd read/write speeds - the loading times suck.
@Aneira And this is exactly why I don't see the point in carrying over your entire library. Why don't just play Switch games on good ol' Switch and new games on NS2. Sure you can play some games on the NS2 if there are performance advantages, but an entire library?
I have a 1TB in the current gen NS1. I bought a 1.5TB microSD card in a previous Black Friday but haven't used it yet. I was going to wait to use it in the NS2, but I'm thinking I'll need an express 2TB now.
I won't be transferring my entire library over intially, but my NS1 has screen cracks in it, so I'm uncertain what the future holds for my dear, day 1, OG NS1.
I have some financial planning to do.
It's not enough! 2TB for Switch 2 is minimum. 2TB for the first Switch at this point is the maximum and minimum at the same time, if you have a lot of games and don't want to keep removing and downloading them. Can't imagine only 1TB in my Switch 2 with new games.
@HugoGED
Yes, that makes sense...unless there is some complication with activating your Nintendo Account on the new system. From the Wii to Wii U it was super lame. If you did transfer, you could no longer play your digital games on the Wii.
There is plenty of opportunity for Nintendo to screw this up and make it more painful than it should be.
@HugoGED i dont anyone except OCD maniacs will carry over their entire library. Every gamer will have games on their Switch 1 thye know fine well they are either never gonna play, didnt like, or wont play. so a case of just redownloading your top switch games. arrying over an entire library would just be a kind of fetish thing where you have it there just for the sake of it.
Would have been a lot better switch 2 reveal the other day if Nintendo would have done console specs and these potential new features etc, a proper console reveal.
Then in April focus on release date, price, preorders and options and of course the games.
Nintendo really have not been impressive with the way they did that reveal and switch 2.
@Aneira considering the Switch (unlike the Wii or Wii U) allows for users to login and play on secondary Switch consoles, I figure worst case scenario your Switch 1 would be relegated as a secondary console after transfer, which would require a quick online check every time you boot a downloaded game. Though that can be a bit annoying if you're bringing it out of the house.
So it's like the Solid State External HD of the Switch 2, sounds like the first thing I'll be getting for the new console. Awesome.
@whitespy12
I was wondering how that would work. Didn't think that was possible. Then you could in theory share an entire library with a friends Switch if they have no account of their own.
I never thought Nintendo would allow for such an option.
1tb would be more than enough for me. I buy a lot of games but I also have no problem archiving them when I'm finished or done with them. No reason I would ever need to have stuff like Fairune or Earth Atlantis accessible all the time. Only takes a moment to redownload something if I want to go back, not much different to me than swapping game carts.
2TB is what i need.
@RupeeClock I suspect they will just have to explain clearly that the "EX" tag means it works for Switch 2 games, and that everything else will be Switch 1 only, but you are right in that this will be an issue. I do hope that NS1 games don't revert to UHS-1 speeds for back compat as is supported by SD Express since it would be sad to be speed bottlenecked on older games unnecessarily.
Seeing as no one has asked, when we getting gamesave backup for sd cards on switch 1?
@X68000
And the Switch 2 might not support it. So..
@DannyBoi
Never.
Must have or can afford? Where I live, finding an XC type SanDisk of the capacity below $100 is pure luck. Anything bigger (or supposedly more reputable like Samsung Evo) can reach the cost of a whole Switch.
Will we ba able to connect an external ssd to the Switch2?
@PolitiClank
Thankfully the branding here is on point.
There's no confusing jargon like the speed classes before, all you have to explain is that you need the "Express" version.
I’ll have to get something like this day one but dreading the cost in this, the switch, and any games. With these tariffs, they’ll be sky high.
This'll be interesting. I've already resolved that I'm getting a 2TB card. But I'll wait for more details on 4/2.
Ugh this wait for April 2nd is gonna be looooong…
Literally no point having that many games installed on one system. Absolute madness
8TB or bust. Lol.
@X68000 been meaning to ask- is your pfp a gif of Segata Shinshiro? Man is an absolute legend.
I just have a 256GB for my Switch OLED but it's only half full. But when a Switch 2 OLED comes out then I'll get it and a 1TB Express card.
With the price of these SD cards I think I’ll stick with physical games.
Just buy regular sandisk/samsung microsd express card, added brand whether its nintendo, zelda, mario, etc always add higher price to the sdcard.
@X68000 physical games on the Switch 2 will much quicker loading times than physical games on the Switch.
As MicroSD Express cards are 9 times faster than the MicroSD cards used for physical Switch games.
On the digital games storage side. MicroSD Express cards have a gigantic 128TB max capacity. Though it would cost tens of thousands if a storage card that size was actually available.
@wiiware Switch 2 uses MicroSD Express cards for the Switch 2 physical games and Switch 2 digital downloaded games.
It's upto 9 times faster than the MicroSD cards used in the Switch for both physical and digital downloaded games.
It's not exactly hard to do a google search price comparison of MicroSD Express cards. Though I would stick to reputable brands like SanDisk etc and from reputable stores selling it.
@VHSGREMLIN Currently isn't any 6TB MicroSD Express cards available. And the price would be very very high. They currently aren't cheap to produce in higher capacities.
@PolitiClank That will be upto each individual developer/publisher if they decide to patch a Switch game to make the loading times quicker on the Switch 2.
Unless Nintendo has done something to automatically enable Switch games to have faster loading times when played on Switch 2.
@Kingchin Digital Foundry shwocased that on PS4/Xbox One, the load speeds do naturally improve with a faster storage solution, same as PC (the Switch also already loads at different speeds depending on the storage device used). If a game is taking a while to load, faster data streaming will improve things without intervention from the developers. The difference in efficiency for the modern machines more comes down to the hardware decompression engines in both the Series S|X and PS5 (rumoured and leaked to be in Switch 2 also) that would not be available to older software.
When I ask for better loading, I don't mean a patch to take advantage of the hardware, I just don't want my SD card loading slower than it has to buy using UHS-1 speeds like it would if I put it into an OG switch, rather than the full Express speeds it is capable of; I am not expecting any software related improvements on games without patches.
@OldGamer999 "Would have been a lot better switch 2 reveal the other day if Nintendo would have done console specs and these potential new features etc, a proper console reveal.
Then in April focus on release date, price, preorders and options and of course the games.
Nintendo really have not been impressive with the way they did that reveal and switch 2."
The Nintendo Switch 2 reveal trailer in the first 48 hours got more YouTube views than the Switch, PS5, PS5 Pro reveal trailers. The average console buyer isn't that knowledgeable about specs. They just want better looking and better playing games than the previous system.
@PolitiClank I watched those Digital Foundry videos years ago. And PS4 games load much quicker on the PS5 SSD than they did on the PS4 HHD. But optimization patches made them load even quicker.
Im well aware of decompression. And that the Switch 2 is heavily rumoured to have a custom file decompression block to reduce loading times.
That's upto Nintendo whether transfered digital Switch games put onto a MicroSD Express card on the Switch 2 loads at the quicker MicroSD Express limit on the Switch 2. I personally don't imagine they will bottleneck it but we will have to wait and see.
Why are there Triangles and Circles in the image?
Seems more like a P$ thing than a Ninty thing
@whitespy12
Just so you are aware, that check also happens with physical games!
Somehow, my switch day one / only Switch became activated as a secondary Switch.
When I tried putting a game in, it said I NEEDED to connect to the Internet to verify.
@RupeeClock
Why is it a Square Root symbol?
Is there speed shenanigans going on?
I'm hoping that:
1 - we still get physical games for Switch 2
2 - Nintendo makes bigger cards
3 - Nintendo "eats" the cost of the carts so we don't have ridiculous crap like only 1 GB on cart and 25gb downloads again.
4 - if games (like Bayonetta 1 & 2) are multiple in a physical case, than put both on the Cart or put TWO carts in the case!
@Kingchin I mean regular sandisk or samsung microsd express card, not nintendo branded one. It's great that nintendo use this new faster sdcard 😃
Of course you can only store 800 bits of software at a singular time on a Switch before you have to delete something to make room (If you have any room left), so it'll be interesting to see if Nintendo up that limit or not before we start worrying about the max TB cards it can take.
You should really mention that this is new tech and supposedly will have transfer rates of about 900 MB/s. Which puts it beyond SATA 6 SSD speeds, which is very nice. That's the reason for the price.
(probably someone mentioned this already in the comments, sorry didn't read them all)
1 TB seem fine tbh, but that's just me.
@Aneira
The limits will be:
1. The manufacturers' ability to produce the cards. I suspect 1 TB to be the highest for a while, and then it will double every 18 months or so.
2. Your wallet. The costs for high capacity cards will start high and slowly come down over time.
3. The Switch's filesystem formatting settings. Hopefully they will future-proof it to be able to format ridiculously large storage. They will almost certainly support cards up to 2TB at launch, since this is the current limit.
I don't think 2TB microSD Express cards will be available at launch, but if you only need it to store your Switch 1 games, you can get a microSDXC card this size. It will be slower, and you may need to use internal storage for Switch 2 games, or swap cards.
Xbox just updated their firmware to be able to support drives larger than 16 TB, with larger storage being divided into 16 TB partitions: https://support.xbox.com/en-GB/help/hardware-network/xbox-insider-release-notes/console/alpha-skip-ahead/2025/01/alpha-skip-ahead-2502-250120-2200
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