I’m getting a 64gb steam deck probably next month. It will be used as a portable console and a desktop PC for work (desktop reliant websites). The most heavy game I’ll play is Stray (no 1st person shooters, MMOs or huge open worlds) with an hour or two of play time a day.
I plan to get a 3rd party dock, a screen protector and a case. I will wait until around black friday for those.
Is it necessary to get a ssd? Or will the 128gb micro SD card I have will be okay for one downloaded game at a time?
Main issue is the heat. Will a case make the SD hotter? Will having a JSAUX backplate or a fan matter to keep the console cooler during playing? From what I’ve read, people say the backplates will still get heated after so many minutes of playing. The fans seems to put vaccume pressure on the actual fan and will cause it to stop working in the near future. I want to prioritize coolness before getting everything else.
You are fine for now. You will notice when storage starts to run out. Most important thing right now is understanding how everything works on Linux and the Deck specifically. How it handles shaders, why storage runs out even if you dont have games on the internal storage, etc.
Start looking into som videos about the deck. Download cryo utilities and follow that setup, you learn a lot and speed your Deck up while at it. Only suggestion coming from a fellow 64gb user is to not use more than maybe 8gb of storage for the extra “ram” you can create. You will run out of space. And don’t install any games directly on the Deck whatsoever. Only use that external storage.
When, or if, you start to run out. A 1tb sd instead of your 128gb could be the easiest option and requires 0 tinkering. I swapped the internal storage myself just about 3 days ago and it was super easy. But just getting a 1tb sd is probably best for most people anyway.
Welcome to the gang. Enjoy. Your purchase was a great one.