Small, but Mighty! – Crucial P310 M.2 2230 2TB SSD Review

Steam Deck Performance

Steam Deck Performance – A great 2TB Upgrade Option

Crucial’s P310 SSD is an ideal upgrade option for portable gaming devices like Valve’s Steam Deck. Unfortunately, Valve’s handheld has not been made with SSDs like the P310 in mind, as it is a PCIe 3.0 x4 device. Given its lack of PCIe 4.0 compatibility, this SSD cannot stretch its legs and deliver its full performance levels. Even so, this is the fastest SSD that we have tested on our Steam Deck system.

Honestly, I think Valve and AMD were a little short sighted by not adding PCIe 4.0 support to the Steam Deck’s SOC. While the Crucial P310 offers Steam Deck users a huge performance boost over the device’s stock SSD, its potential is limited by the device’s lack of PCIe 4.0 support. That said, users can upgrade their Steam Deck with this SSD now, and them move it to a potential “Steam Deck 2” device when the time comes. Remember, this drive does have a lengthy 5-year warranty.

Even with PCIe 3.0 restraining this SSD’s performance, Crucial’s P310 makes the Steam Deck’s stock 512GB SSD look slow by comparison. With the P310, load times and boot times are snappier, especially when compared to the Steam Deck’s baseline 64GB eMMC model.