Valve like to warn people about about the risks of maintaining the Steam Deck yourself, and that now extends to memory upgrades. To reply to a PC Gamers article on Steam Deck modification, Valve hardware designer Lawrence Yang warning against upgrading the device’s NVMe SSD. Although technically the M.2 2242 (22mm wide x 42mm long) drives you’ll normally find in stores are hotter and more power hungry than the 2230 (22mm x 30mm) models this handheld support. You can “dramatically shorten” the life of the system, says Yang, adding that you shouldn’t move the heatsinks.
The PC Gamers modder references Belly Jelly’s story discover (initial report via Hot hardware) to be able to mount the M.2 2242 SSD in the Steam Deck, albeit with some design sacrifices. There have been concerns that this could lead to overheating problems. Yang just explained why it was a bad idea and outlined the possible long-term consequences.
The warning can be a disappointment if you feel limited by Valve’s maximum 512GB of memory and don’t think a microSD card (which is often much slower than an SSD) is an adequate replacement. That said, it’s not surprising – portable devices like this often have size and thermal limitations that make upgrading at least some components impractical.
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