One of the first major hardware revisions has hit the Steam Deck, and you’ll want to find out which Solid State Drive you have to see if you’re affected. Luckily, it’s relatively easy to check what model of hard drive you have, and you don’t even have to disassemble the Steam Deck.
How to find out what model of SSD your Steam Deck has
To find out what kind of SSD your Steam Deck has, you just need to follow a few simple steps:
Hold down the power button until the options menu appears.
- Enter Desktop Mode
- Open the Applications Menu
- In the search bar, type “Device Viewer”
- Look under “Devices” for “Storage Drives”
- Tap “Hard Disk Drive” to select the SSD and look in the right panel for a model number.
This is important because Valve initially shipped all 256GB and 512GB Steam Decks with PCIe Gen 3 x4 SSDs. Sometime around the end of May 2022, the company started sourcing PCIe Gen 3 x2 SSDs in addition to the Gen 3 X4 drives. The reason behind this is likely to speed up manufacturing to meet demand quicker, but the result is that some users will have half the potential read/write speed than others.
To see which drive you have, look at the model number above for these designators after the dash:
- E08: PCIe Gen 3 x2 SSD
- E13: PCIe Gen 3 x4 SSD
Valve stated that there was no discernable difference in functional performance after extensive testing. However, those who get the Gen 3 x2 SSDs are getting inferior hardware for the same price as those who get the Gen 3 x4 drives. Valve warns against replacing the SSD, but the PCIe interface is still Gen 3 x4 capable. We haven’t seen any test results from users yet, so only time will tell if SSD performance from the slower drives is enough of an issue to warrant replacement.
