Samsung P9 MicroSD Express Review: The Fastest Budget Switch 2 Storage Yet

The Nintendo Switch 2 definite has been bully for microSD Express. The modular has been astir since 2019, but Nintendo making it required for its caller handheld has made it spell from nonexistent to robust and affordable virtually overnight. Samsung, which already makes 1 of the champion Nintendo Switch 2 microSD Express cards, has tossed different paper connected the heap with the Samsung P9 microSD Express paper – and it’s the fastest I’ve tested yet.

Samsung lent maine the 256GB mentation of this card, which, astatine $54.99, is priced close betwixt the PNY and Onn cards I’ve already reviewed – and is adjacent $5 cheaper than the 1 it makes for Nintendo. It’s besides measurably faster than some of those cards, beating some by a mile successful constitute speeds and outdoing the Onn paper successful work speeds. And from wherever I’m sitting, it’s a amended worth than either of those options – and astir apt immoderate akin cards from Lexar oregon SanDisk.

Throughput

Nintendo’s determination to microSD Express gives its console interior SSD-like retention velocity without each the hassle of opening your console to instal an M.2 SSD similar the PS5, oregon requiring gamers to bargain an overpriced, bespoke paper to plug into a peculiar larboard similar the Xbox Series X/S. How accelerated is Samsung’s microSD Express card, exactly? Well, really dang fast if we’re to judge the 800MB/s sequential work throughput that Samsung promotes connected its site. But that’s misleading successful this context; due to the fact that of the mode crippled files are structured, it’s person to the astir 90MB/s I saw successful testing.

But don’t fret implicit that little number. Something similar a video record has its information neatly lined up, and erstwhile read, it’s work sequentially. But a video crippled is truly a bundle afloat of smaller files, information that’s stored non-contiguously – that’s what the “random” work and constitute spec is referring to. And successful this situation, the transportation process ne'er has the runway it needs to get up to sequential throughput levels. The small-file constitution of video games is why, arsenic you’ll spot successful my investigating below, record transportation throughput tin alteration rather a spot from 1 crippled to the next. Some games person a smaller fig of files but successful larger blocks, portion others mightiness person thousands of tiny files that bog down the process.

The much important metric for random reads and writes is the fig of input/output operations per second, oregon IOPS, a paper tin bash – and the P9 can, by Samsung’s reckoning, scope up to 65,000 IOPS successful random reads and 52,000 IOPS successful random writes. That’s precise accelerated compared to the theoretical (but seldom actualized) 4,000 IOPS capableness of immoderate modular microSD cards. Unfortunately, I don’t person a standalone microSD Express paper reader, truthful I can’t really corroborate their IOPS numbers with PC investigating bundle similar CrystalDiskMark. Instead, I person to trust connected like-for-like crippled transfers to get a consciousness of which paper is amended astatine what.

Performance: Load Times

Loading times for games is wherever astir players’ microSD Express paper prime really affects them. To trial this, I simply started up the aforesaid games respective times and averaged however agelong it took to get from archetypal opening a crippled to its commencement screen. Across astir each crippled I tested, the 256GB Samsung P9 and the same-size PNY paper I besides reviewed did astir the same. Donkey Kong Bananza loaded successful conscionable 21 seconds connected mean for either, portion it took conscionable implicit 9 seconds to get into The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

The 1 objection was Mario Kart World, which took astir 2 seconds longer with Samsung’s paper than PNY’s. Even the (Walmart location brand) Onn paper loaded Mario Kart World astir a half-second faster than the P9. Notably, each clip you footwear up MKW, the commencement surface loads a antithetic portion of the game’s unfastened world, letting you seamlessly leap into driving astir it by pressing the “+” fastener connected your controller. It’s imaginable that the P9’s slower show was conscionable luck of the draw.

Otherwise, some cards outperformed the Onn, sometimes by conscionable a fraction of a second, others by aggregate seconds – it took astir 3 seconds longer to load Fast Fusion from the Onn paper than the others; and astir 5 seconds longer for Donkey Kong Bananza. Going by crippled load times, Samsung’s paper and PNY’s are cervix and neck, and some thin to beryllium a small slower than the Switch 2’s interior storage.

Performance: Throughput

I tested work and constitute throughput by timing crippled record transfers to and from the card, and the communicative was overmuch the aforesaid present arsenic with loading: Samsung and PNY were a chopped supra Onn. I started by moving games from the paper to the console to cheque work throughput. Here, the Samsung P9 averaged conscionable nether 80MB/s for Mario Kart World(21.9GB), 87.25MB/s for Donkey Kong Bananza (8.9GB), and 96MB/s for Resident Evil 4 (12GB). Compare that to the PNY card’s transportation throughput of 81.7MB/s, 88.7MB/s, and 76.9MB/s, respectively. So astir the same, isolated from the P9’s outlier Resident Evil 4 result.

Write speeds are wherever the Samsung P9 shined. It consistently hung retired betwixt 71MB/s and 73MB/s crossed each transportation test, dissimilar some the PNY and Onn cards, which were slower, and varied heavy betwixt tests. Each enactment up betwixt 52 and 62MB/s successful random constitute throughput. That meant it took maine conscionable 4 minutes to constitute my 17.2GB Super Smash Bros Ultimate transcript to the Samsung P9. That took astir 5 minutes for the Onn paper and adjacent to six minutes connected the PNY card. Writing Mario Kart to the Samsung P9 was astir 2.5 minutes faster than to the different cards, though it’s worthy noting present that a caller update shrank the crippled by astir 3GB aft that test. Still, that was a 72MB/s transfer, compared to 54–56MB/s to the different cards.

The Best of the Budget Cards

Samsung P9 is measurably amended than its Onn and PNY peers, and astatine $55, it’s a no-brainer, astatine slightest compared to the $61.99 PNY card. Whether it’s worthy it compared to the $46.77 Onn paper depends connected however good you tin spend the quality and however often you shuffle files betwixt your interior retention and your microSD Express card. If that doesn’t hap often, this Samsung paper mightiness beryllium worthy it conscionable to prevention your wealth oregon enactment it towards different crippled – that 9 bucks you prevention volition get you astir of the mode toward Fast Fusion, a beauteous antigrav racer for the F-Zero-starved among us.

Wes is simply a freelance writer (Freelance Wes, they telephone him) who has covered technology, gaming, and amusement steadily since 2020 astatine Gizmodo, Tom's Hardware, Hardcore Gamer, and astir recently, The Verge. Inside of him determination are 2 wolves: 1 that thinks it wouldn't beryllium truthful atrocious to commencement collecting crippled consoles again, and the different who besides thinks this, but much strongly.