Sure thing. Here we go:
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Okay, so here’s the lowdown. MicroSD Express cards these days? Crazy expensive. Like why even bother? So, folks with a knack for tinkering are trying to figure out other ways to amp up the Switch 2’s storage. There’s this YouTuber, Better Gaming, and they took a swing at something wild — an open-source MicroSD Express adapter for the Switch 2. It’s supposed to handle full-throttle M.2 NVMe 2230 SSDs. Spoiler: didn’t pan out as planned.
Now, we’ve already chewed over this adapter thingy before — it’s part of the SDEX2M2 project. Pretty geeky stuff going on here. It’s built around the MicroSD Express’ PCIe roots, dipping into some NVMe wizardry to let those M.2 SSDs strut their stuff. To give it a more technical name drop, it’s all about SD Express 7.1 standards, spiraling around a PCIe Gen 3×1 interface. Yeah, even saying that makes me dizzy.
Anyway, so Better Gaming snagged these blueprints for the SDEX2M2 getup and, bless their heart, had a whole bunch of PCBs whipped up through some third-party. Then it was a solder fest, slapping all the bits together to come up with something that sported an M.2 connector and an R1 resistor. Sounds simple enough, right? Four soldering tries and four PCBs later, they finally had something workable. Slapped in a Corsair MP600 Mini NVMe SSD and popped that into their Switch 2. Hardware-wise? Smooth as butter.
But — you smelled this coming — then calamity struck. Suddenly, an ominous “2016-0641” error jumps out, hand-in-hand with a message that screamed, “Nope, can’t touch this MicroSD card,” or words to that effect. Yikes!
The plot thickens. Turns out these passive adapters don’t really chat the way the Switch 2 wants. MicroSD Express cards? They’ve got their own boss-like controllers that devices expect to talk to. Our NVMe SSDs? Yeah, they’ve got controllers but they’re not blabbing the SD Express 7.1 lingo. It’s like trying to get cats and dogs to work together on a group project.
Word on the street is that the brains behind the SDEX2M2 are onto this and are supposedly whipping up a new design — with an FPGA to mimic a MicroSD Express controller. If that flies, gamers might finally have a way to beef up that tiny 256GB storage on the Switch 2 without coughing up kidney-money for MicroSD Express cards — which, btw, go for 20 to 25 cents per GB. Compare that to 1TB NVMe SSDs, like the Corsair MP600 Mini — those go for $89.99 or so.
Oh, and if you’re into tech rambles like this, hit up Tom’s Hardware on Google News to stay in the loop like a boss!
