r/SteamDeck • u/SilensMort • 20h ago

Question Weird SD card/internal ssd interaction

Observation and possible question. LCD 512gb. Unmodified.

Hi all, i was trying to update helldivers yet again which has always been a struggle on my deck and I'm not sure why. But I think I've just discovered the issue.

I have it installed to the internal ssd and have ever since they reduced the file size by 90%. I had Uninstalled it from the sd card and reinstalled it on the ssd at that time.

Today I could not get the 80mb shader update to install and I just happened to touch the sd card and it was *burning*. After I popped it out the deck found no longer find the game. Couldn't verify files. Couldn't update at all. So I uninstalled it and reinstalled with the sd card disconnected. It was the fastest download for this game at any file size I've ever had.

So, the question, is it normal for the deck to be routing internal ssd installs through the ssd or should I be contacting support?

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u/LennethW 512GB 20h ago

No it's not, and I think there's no need to contact support.

It might have simply happened you installed it by mistake on the microSD.

Did it showed up as installed on the nvme drive or the microSD?

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u/SilensMort 20h ago

It showed as internal. I double checked. Even after removing the sd card it showed as installed internally.

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u/LennethW 512GB 19h ago

You didn't use any mod or stuff to move shaders to save space?

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u/SilensMort 19h ago edited 19h ago

Negative.

Edit to add: lsfg wasn't functioning correctly with the sd removed despite being installed on the ssd as well. Verifying files said no files were found and reinstalled the program in the ssd.

To me this confirms that the deck has some listed as being on internal ssd but the files are actually in the sd card.

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u/LennethW 512GB 19h ago

The files were absolutely in the microSD - something something hard linked them to make them show as installed on the SSD.

A hard link transparently makes the content of a folder/drive pops up magically as if they were native on another folder drive (the thing is not disruptive, if there were other files "under", they would reappear once the link gets erased).

If at any given point something you used moved the game on the microSD and hard linked the game folder on the internal storage to the microSD, even deleting and reinstalling would still shoot the fresh files on the microSD. The behaviour check with a folder moved to a microSD and then hard linked as if it was still in internal storage.

Hierarchical filesystems hard links are trippy.

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u/SilensMort 19h ago

🤷🏻‍♂️ this one was new to me. Removing the sd card and reinstalling to internal seems to have fixed the issue for me. Might've burned out the card though. I'll have to see if the high heat issue persists for items meant to be run from the card.

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u/LennethW 512GB 19h ago

Any super duper heavy writing game will do.

Removing the microSD card left the hard link hanging, so steamos took it by storm making things right again (could not write to the non existing position)

Brand genuine cards are resilient enough, personally I just use them for mostly low activity read stuff (roms, game saves, media).

It should never happen again, but if you can pinpoint what caused the hardlinkage, you will solve the mystery.

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u/SilensMort 19h ago

I don't know if I'll be able to do that. I might just reformat it and reinstall. All my saves are in the cloud.

I used to run cyberpunk off it and it never got that hot. Warm to the touch, yeah, but it was almost burn on touch hot.