Key Takeaways
- Upgrading your Steam Deck’s SSD? Cloning is one of the best ways to go. It saves time and transfers all of your information, settings, and video games to the brand new SSD.
- You should utilize Macrium Replicate to clone your previous SSD onto the brand new one. Make sure that to avoid wasting the backup picture file and restore it on the brand new SSD.
- After restoring the picture onto the brand new SSD, set up it onto your Steam Deck. It ought to boot up while not having to reinstall SteamOS or log in.
Are you upgrading your Steam Deck SSD however do not need to arrange your system from scratch? Right here’s learn how to clone your SSD for a better improve.
Why Cloning Your Steam Deck’s SSD Is Higher
Slotting in a brand new SSD into your Steam Deck doesn’t routinely load it with SteamOS, your login info, or your video games. If you wish to simply plug in your new SSD into your Steam Deck with out organising the system from scratch, cloning is one of the best ways to go.
Cloning your previous SSD will trick your Steam Deck into considering it’s the identical one, besides with extra storage. All of your information, Steam Deck settings, login info, video games, and so forth., will all be acknowledged the identical means by your Steam Deck.
For those who’re trying to set up an even bigger SSD to your Steam Deck, clone your previous one to it first so that you could instantly begin downloading new video games to it as an alternative of sitting fussing about putting in SteamOS.
Learn how to Clone Your Steam Deck’s SSD to a New One
Cloning your previous SSD to your new one will prevent a lot time. You received’t must expertise the time-consuming means of manually imaging SteamOS, logging in, ready for updates, and getting all of your previous settings proper. Right here’s how you are able to do it…
Step 1: Obtain Macrium Replicate on a Separate PC
Since we’re not going to be utilizing an SSD enclosure on this information, we’re going to want a separate PC that has an NVMe/SATA M.2 slot on the motherboard.
On the PC, we’re going to make use of Macrium Replicate to clone the previous SSD onto the brand new one.
Register and create a Macrium Replicate account and obtain the free trial because it has all the things you want for this course of.
Copy your license plate, click on on Obtain Trial on the Residence model, and run the setup.
In the course of the setup, test the field for the 30-day trial and enter your license plate when it asks for it.
As soon as the setup is finished, and also you’ve put in Macrium Replicate in your PC, now you can head to the following step.
Step 2: Picture Your Previous SSD
For those who solely have one SSD slot in your motherboard, then imaging your SSD is the one approach to go.
First, take away your Steam Deck’s previous SSD. For those who don’t know the way, try this Steam Deck SSD set up information as you’ll be utilizing it later to put in your upgraded SSD as effectively.
Subsequent, together with your PC shut down and unplugged, you must set up the NVME or M.2 SSD into your motherboard. For the reason that Steam Deck makes use of a 2230-size SSD, you probably received’t be capable to screw it down. However that’s okay as long as you don’t knock it off or transfer your PC an excessive amount of through the course of.
Now, flip in your PC and open up Macrium Replicate. Choose your previous Steam Deck SSD within the drives checklist and click on on Picture this disk… under it.
It’ll ask you the place you need to save your picture file. I selected to make a brand new folder in order that I’d bear in mind the place to get it from later. Macrium Replicate compresses photographs right down to 40% of their unique measurement, so make certain to have no less than that a lot accessible house the place you put it aside.
Identify your backup picture and click on OK till it begins creating the picture file. It could take wherever from a couple of minutes to about an hour relying on the dimensions of the drive and the way a lot is on it. My 64GB SSD solely took about 5 minutes.
In case your motherboard has two SSD slots, you may click on
Clone this Disk
…
as an alternative of imaging. You’ll be able to then observe related steps, however skip the picture restoration course of by immediately copying the partitions of the previous SSD to the brand new one. This technique is quicker because it’ll do the cloning in a single step.
Step 3: Restore Your Backup Picture to Your New SSD
Now that your backup picture is prepared, now you can shut down your PC, substitute the previous SSD together with your new one, and boot your PC again up.
Earlier than you open up Macrium Replicate, seek for “Create and format arduous disk partitions” within the Home windows search bar. This may open up the disk supervisor.
Search for your new SSD—it needs to be black if it hasn’t been used earlier than. Proper-click on it and choose Convert to GPT Disk. The GPT partitioning scheme is what SteamOS works finest with, so it’s finest to make use of that.
Open up Macrium Replicate, and on the highest menu bar, click on Restore> Browse for a picture or backup file to revive….
As soon as you discover the picture file that you just created earlier, choose it in Macrium Replicate and click on Restore.
A pop-up will seem, permitting you to decide on the place you need to restore the picture to. Click on on Choose a disk to revive to…and select your new SSD.
Click on on Copy partitions> Precise Offset and Size. This may visualize the partitions on the brand new SSD. Don’t fear concerning the empty house, go away that clean as SteamOS will instantly put it to use when you boot up your Steam Deck.
Click on on Subsequent till the End button is clickable. This may begin pasting the picture onto the brand new SSD. It could take some time relying on how huge the entire operation is.
Step 4: Insert Your New SSD Into Your Steam Deck
As soon as the previous SSD’s picture has been copied onto your new SSD, now you can shut down your PC and set up the drive onto your Steam Deck.
Energy in your Steam Deck, and it ought to boot up with out you needing to reinstall SteamOS and even log in in any respect.
If SteamOS in some way can’t be discovered, shut down your Steam Deck and go to the BIOS.
You’ll be able to open up the BIOS by holding down the amount up button and the ability button. You must let go of the ability button once you hear a chime, however nonetheless maintain down the amount up button till the BIOS seems.
Choose Boot from file> eps > efi > steamos > steamcl.efi. You’re manually booting into SteamOS with this technique and the following time you flip in your Steam Deck, you shouldn’t want to do that once more until you’ve gotten one other OS in your Steam Deck.
Now you can go forward and instantly obtain your video games with out ever worrying about setting your Steam Deck up from scratch. We hope this information has made it simpler so that you can improve your SSD.
