Which SD or MicroSD Card buy for Nintendo Switch
The best memory card for a Nintendo Switch and a brief explanation to understand why is the right option
TECHNOLOGY
Eduardo Domínguez Menéndez
8/13/20242 min read
Choosing an external storage for Nintendo Switch can be crazy: many specs, and so many logos on the storage cards, what does each logo mean? what cards are compatibles? In this article, you will find a list of the best 4 MicroSD for your Nintendo Switch and the reasons to choose these cards analysing Nintendos's requirements and external storage cards features.
If you want to save time and don't know more... click on one of the following links to buy the best external memory for Nintendo Switch:
If you want to know the reasons behind previous selection read the following lines:
First of all, it is important to know the requirements of Nintendo (as stated on the official site):
"We recommend using a single microSD card with your Nintendo Switch console.
Only microSD cards can be used on the Nintendo Switch console.
The following types of microSD card are supported on Nintendo Switch:
microSD (up to 2 GB)
microSDHC (4 GB - 32 GB)
microSDXC (64 GB and above)
In order to improve your gameplay experience, using a microSD card with a higher transfer speed is recommended. High-speed microSD card guidelines:
UHS-I (Ultra High Speed Phase I) compatible
Transfer speed 60 - 95 MB/sec (the higher the transfer speed, the better gameplay experience on Nintendo Switch)"
Now, the reasoning:
Go to a microSDXC to have enough space, using several cards with less storage capacity is tedious and forums are full of people raising problems while using multiple cards. Nintendo also recommends using only one SD card. For example, Fortnite requires over 15 GB of space.
A1 (Application Performance Class) or A2. This grants a minimum of 1,500 reading and 500 writing operations per second using 4 kbytes blocks. This certification tell us the performance of the SD cards when running apps, such as games. There is a higher tier: the A2, but Nintendo Switch is not able of use this better performance (Nintendo hasn’t provided official confirmation, but this is widely accepted by the community).
U3, the card should have the certification (Class 3 UHS Speed Class). This ensures a minimum write performance of 30 MB/s.
UHS-I (Ultra High Speed) is a speed rate standard. The cards that comply with this standard shows a Roman numerals 'I'. It means the SD card can achieve speeds of 50 MB/seg or 104 MB/seg. There are higher speeds: UHS-II or UHS-III but specifications of Nintendo are clear "UHS-I compatible", Using higher-speed cards may lead to compatibility issues, and you could end up paying more for speeds that your Nintendo Switch cannot utilize.
With recognised brands you minimize the likelihood to have problems. Many, many problems can be seen in forums involve cards from unrecognized Chinese brands.