Solving Steam Deck Shader Storage with a 61.44TB SSD
Solving Steam Deck Shader Storage with a 61.44TB SSD
The toys in the StorageReview lab are extensive. In this piece, we look at…
The essence of this unconventional amalgamation lies in its absurdity. We chose the Solidigm P5336 enterprise SSD, offering a staggering 61.44TB capacity. While the capacity is amazing, it leverages an enterprise U.2 form factor, which is problematic given the Steam Deck’s M.2 slot. As such, an M.2 to external U.2 adapter from NFHK was employed as the bridge, paired with an Icy Dock enclosure to hold the drive.
Unnecessary modifications of the steam deck that make stationary? I could not resist posting this here ;) My question to all the steam deck fans out there: Would you be able to fill this 60 TB beast with games?
I had to read the title three times before it clicked that it said 64 TERABYTES and not gigabytes.
Holy smokes.
my steam library and all dlc is just over 10tb. Thats for 976 games. I need to step up my game
Please dont give game developers any more excuses to bloat their games I have enough pain with 50-100gb titles, when they get a whiff of this they'll cream their pants and bloat them to a terabyte per game.
3D print a custom back for that and make it portable again. Though I wonder how much power the drive consumes.
Edit: NM, between the external power supply required and the fact the first picture is it just sitting on the Steam Deck and not actually integrated, you’d be carrying it around extra. Maybe mod the deck and put the drive in a housing so it’s easier to hook up.
Would you be able to fill this 60 TB beast with games?
Why would you do that? You can only play one game at a time. You'll really only enjoy a few games at most a day. Just keep the game data on the Deck that you plan to play.
This is like keeping every website you know open in a tab, just in case you plan to visit it.
This is like keeping every website you know open in a tab, just in case you plan to visit it.
The problem with that is more download speed, imo. Yeah, you can only play 1 game at a time, but if it's going to take you a day to install another game, why not have a few? And then ofc different games satisfy different needs. Like you can have a long JRPG, a shooter you're playing with your friends, a casual indie game you're working on.
You can only play one game at a time, but that doesn't stop you from playing multiple games over some days
This is like keeping every website you know open in a tab, just in case you plan to visit it.
Yeah, and what kind of an utter moron would do something like that? 😅
Honestly it feels like there's something wrong with my brain that just stops me from making good use of bookmarks (and that something might actually be the ADHD, now that I think about it.)
Generally I just forget that I bookmarked something, so keeping a tab open serves as a sort of reminder to get back that page – right now I have 4 tabs "bookmarked" with a bunch of different WiFi AP models I was looking into, and seeing those tabs reminds me that yeah I need to do that shit at some point.
Yes, in theory I could just use the reminder application that comes with my frickin' operating system, but somehow that always eventually goes to shit too 😂
If you haven't worked it out, that whole project was definitely more about because we can, than any sort of sensible reason.
Hah, yeah, and it's awesome that you can do this with a Deck. It is just a computer, after all 😄
60TB is a lot. My library almost fits on a 4TB drive, but I don't play modern COD or Battlefield. All the huge AAA games nowadays are huge in storage cost as well, so it's probably be possible to fill it all up.
Edit: Fixed 4GB typo
A 4 GB drive is really not much for a library, or did you mean TB?
OK, that's fun and all, but how much does that crazy SSD cost? :p
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Wow, that's a heck of a lot cheaper than I expected. I mean, it's still more than I'm willing to pay for it on my own, but it's not the "haha no way could I ever buy one" level of impossible I was expecting. My boss probably wouldn't bat an eye if I asked for one to stick in a workstation... Hmm.
huh, that’s not the worst price, was expecting it to be much worse
No, I would not. I'm not sure anyone would be able to fill 60tb of games, that is roughly 600 100gb games?
I have a library of nearly 1,200 + 50 + free games from Epic (some duplicates - say another 50?) and I'm fairly certain all of them installed would only take up maybe 1/3rd.
I currently have 6tb of SSD filled with games (181 on steam + say 25 between other launchers) and 8tb of HDD storage (with 156 games downloaded). Let's call it an even 350games at 10TB, that would mean 60TB is 3,500 games of variable storage size (largest game is ~170gb most between 1gb and 25gb). If we throw in emulated games maybe we can add some ratio of games/gbs if that matters.
Bad estimate math but I think it's close enough for gauging just how many games one would need to own in order to fill up 60TB. That said, with shader cache maybe we'd be closer to the 2,000 game mark, with the rest of the space being used by shaders? Lol.
Now, I like having a lot of games readily available. It comes in use more often that people assume and it's nice having a curated selection of games available. However, I find that at just 1,000 games curating this list takes some time, deciding what game fits better on PC or handheld, if it's a game I'm even interested in, etc. So to own and actively curate triple the number of games... I'd need far fewer hobbies and far more time for gaming, lmao!
All this said, the realization that I could download my entire steam library onto a single steam deck... Now that seems enticing. However, I feel it brings along a new issue itself... Everytime you turn on the deck you will be waiting for hours as the shaders update, lmao!
I think that beyond 1, max 2 tb is just a waste to have more storage, you'll just end up stuck with the " Netflix dilemma" all the time. Every game is already in your Steam library (or the other ones) as it is. Even if the wifi download take time, with a cheap dock and a cable connected to the modem you can download all your title quite quickly. With 2 tb there should be also enough room for "free games" files.
I think it is hard to set a limit, as some games have 2 GB and others have 200 GB. Depending on the games (and mods) you like, it is possible to fill a 2 TB disk with just a handful of games. Other gamers might have 100+ games installed on the 512 GB model.
@cron I don't know if I'd fill one of those 60TB with either Steam or non-Steam games. But I have a different question: why struggling with incompatible hardware? Like, okay, you got an adapter, but isn't that thing too physically big for your Deck?