Steam Deck engineers warn of unauthorized replacement of M.2 2242 SSDs

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A few days ago, someone on the Internet released a mod tutorial on how to replace the M.2 2230 SSD on the Steam Deck with the more common M.2 2242 specification. M.2 2242 SSD has better cost performance and better performance. This mod really makes many people tempted, but random changes will indeed affect the stability of the device. Steam Deck engineer Lawrence Yang said that although the M.2 2242 SSD can be retrofitted into the device, this may seriously affect the service life of the Steam Deck itself.

He said that the SSD slot of the Steam Deck is particularly sensitive to power supply, and the M.2 2242 SSD requires more power than the original M.2 2230 SSD. In addition, also like the thermal pads that come with the device may be removed or replaced to install a larger SSD, moving cables and bending the heatsink slightly, although it will not cause a direct problem, for such a compact and sophisticated electronic device as the Steam Deck, these changes may lead to poor heat dissipation of this part of the power supply chip, resulting in a significant increase in operating temperature and affecting the service life of the machine.

In fact, in addition to upgrading and replacing the SSD, Steam Deck actually has an SD card slot. Although the absolute speed of the SD card is much slower than that of the SSD, the actual game loading is not much slower than the internal SSD. A practical SD card is enough for expansion, and it is safer and more convenient.

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