The Nintendo Switch may be getting a little better in terms of being a one-generation console, but the fact remains that it has been a huge success for Nintendo. However, for all its successes, its internal storage simply won’t be big enough in 2023: the 25.9GB of accessible space isn’t enough to save multiple games, and to make matters worse, sometimes you can’t fit any I play on it. – we’re looking at you, NBA 2K19.
However, with this complicated problem in mind, it helps that the Switch contains a Micro SD card slot, meaning you can simply throw in any of a large number of available cards to have much more storage than the measly ~26GB that it comes with. has the Switch. offers as standard. However, finding out which is the best Micro SD card for your Nintendo Switch can be a little more difficult than you imagine, with questions about things like the capacity and overall performance of games installed on an SD card rather than from a cartridge and internal storage.
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It’s at this point where we’ve decided to step in and help, recommending our picks from the bunch when it comes to a multitude of different Micro SD cards you can choose from. These can range from cheaper cards that offer the best price-performance ratio to some absolute giants that offer over a terabyte of storage. However, regardless of the storage capacity you need, we have a good selection of cards that are sure to fit your needs. It’s worth noting that higher capacity cards, such as 512GB, are becoming more affordable, meaning you’ll be able to get more storage for much less.
In addition to simply recommending cards for you to try, we’ll also share the results of our load time tests for different games and also the best ways to transfer your data from the internal storage to the SD card and from the card. to internal storage as well. Doing the math reveals that the Micro SD cards we’ve chosen have slightly faster loading times compared to internal storage, which is worth remembering if you intend to purchase a game digitally or purchase it as a physical cartridge. Anyway, enough talk – here are our top picks for the best Micro SD cards for Nintendo Switch!
Whether you want to stick to physical cartridges or digital purchases, the need for Switch’s mandatory downloads in some scenarios means that a Micro SD card of some kind is an essential purchase.
Best UK Switch Micro SD Cards
For UK buyers, there has been something of a shift, with 512GB cards now offering the best value per gigabyte by some margin, with 128GB and 256GB options trailing behind. 1TB cards are also much cheaper than before, meaning you’re not paying much more per gigabyte to get a lot of game storage on your Switch.
Best US Switch Micro SD Cards
Our US recommendations are slightly different, as there are more brands represented on Amazon.com than on its sister sites. We’ve selected four cards from a few different companies, all with excellent value for money and favorable customer reviews. As of 2023, 256GB and 512GB cards are the best options in terms of cost per gigabyte, while 1TB cards now cost the same per gigabyte as 128GB cards – a surprising change.
The Switch supported Micro SD cards up to 32GB at launch, but a software update shortly after raised this limit to 2TB. Right now we don’t have anything resembling a 2TB card outside of a secret lab, but massive 512GB cards are becoming relatively affordable and even 1TB cards are starting to make sense. The most important point here is that the more space you have, the more games you can install on the card and the less time you will have to spend deleting or redownloading games. Therefore, our recommendation is that you get the largest Micro SD card you can afford, although our recommendations also include best value offers based on GDP or USD per gigabyte calculations.
Here’s Tom Morgan’s look at Micro SD load times compared to the Switch’s internal memory and an actual physical cartridge.
Of course, capacity is only half of the equation; what about speed? Well, here the Switch isn’t quite as future-proof. The console only supports UHS-1 cards, which have a maximum possible speed of 104 MB/s, compared to the 312 MB/s speed limit of the more modern UHS-2 standard. However, our testing revealed only a small difference between the Switch’s slowest and fastest UHS-1 Micro SD cards, so our recommendations are based on capacity and value rather than speed.
In addition to testing different Micro SD cards, we also looked at two other options for playing Switch games: using internal storage and reading directly from the game cartridge. To get an accurate idea of which save method is fastest in different situations, we took recordings of the frame-perfect load time from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. We tested both starting the game and fast traveling between areas, and the results were surprising: you’d think Nintendo’s own cartridges would offer the best loading times, but that’s not the case…
We compared Breath of the Wild’s load times of two SD cards with different read time specifications against internal storage and a physical cart.
| Zelda/change loading times | Cartridge | Internal storage | Sandisk 16GB Ultra SDHC | Sandisk Extreme SDXC 64GB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Temple of Time (Initial Charge) | 35.7 | 30.7 | 34.1 | 34.4 |
| Kakariko Village (initial load) | 27.0 | 24.1 | 26.3 | 26.6 |
| Owa Daim Shrine (initial load) | 9.5 | 8.7 | 9.3 | 9.3 |
| Great Tower of the Plateau (Travel) | 32.6 | 27.7 | 30.9 | 31.2 |
| Dueling Peaks Tower (travel) | 20.5 | 18.8 | 19.8 | 20.1 |
| Sanctuary of the Resurrection (Travel) | 24.2 | 21.8 | 23.0 | 23.8 |
In each test, we got the same hierarchy of results: reading the game cartridge was the slowest method, while internal storage was the fastest. The two Micro SD cards we tested delivered nearly identical times, a bit faster than the cartridge but slower than the internal storage, sometimes by an appreciable margin. For example, in our Temple of Time load test, the internal storage was five seconds faster than the cartridge and four seconds faster than either Micro SD card. That means if you want to minimize game loading times entirely, installing your most played games on the Switch’s internal memory is a smart move.
Note: These tests were conducted before Nintendo added a so-called ‘boost mode’ to Breath of the Wild, which pushes the Switch’s processor to its limits to speed up the loading process when you first enter a game or move to a new area. However, the hierarchy of the different storage methods remains the same.
Now that you have the selected Micro SD card installed, how do you move games from Switch to Micro SD? Unfortunately, it is currently not possible to move game installation data directly from the Switch’s internal memory to a Micro SD card. Instead, you must follow a series of arcane instructions to archive the software and then download it again.
Start by visiting System Settings, selecting Data Management and then Manage Software. Then select the game you want to transfer and select Archive Software, then Archive. Now, insert your Micro SD card, go back to the home screen and select the archived game. Select Download and the game will be downloaded to your Micro SD card. Your save data will not be affected (this is stored in the Switch’s internal memory), but you will have to wait for the download to complete, which can be a hassle for those with slower internet connections. If you want to move games to your internal storage, follow the same steps but remove the Micro SD card before downloading the game to ensure it is installed on the Switch’s flash memory.
In short, the fastest storage option is the 32GB of space that makes up the Switch’s internal flash memory, so use it for your most played games using the method described above if faster loading speeds are your priority. Micro SD cards follow, offering comparable speeds and much higher capacities. When it comes to choosing the best Micro SD card, our advice would be to firstly choose a reputable brand (no-name cards should be avoided, especially when good brands like Samsung, SanDisk and Kingston are reasonably priced). Second, as long as you’re configured with a UHS-1 card, you can afford to largely ignore read and write speeds and instead focus on choosing the highest capacity you can afford, as our tests didn’t. revealed a significant difference in the real world. advantage for higher specification cards.
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Source: ptivs2.edu.vn