This third-party Steam deck base adds an M.2 SSD expansion slot

You still can’t buy an official Steam deck base from Valve, presumably because the company is busy making a ton of actual Steam decks. But of course, as long as there are portable game consoles, there will be some weird little companies ready and willing to sell you weird gadgets that plug into them. In this case, that company is Jsaux, a name as foreign to me as it is to my spell checker. It’s selling a Steam Deck dock with a built-in M.2 port for easy solid-state storage expansion.

See, the official Steam deck dock is basically just a fancy USB-C dock with a clunky cable for the top mount port on the gadget. Several companies have replicated this – you can find plenty of examples on Amazon that provide easy access to HDMI outputs and USB ports for accessories. The Jsaux docking station gives them space to accommodate M.2 SSDs (the popular 2280 standard) up to 80mm long. It’s an easy and inexpensive way to add some storage space to your Steam deck, which maxes out at just 512GB and isn’t easily upgradeable.

It may not be easy to actually use that storage space for gaming while high-end docked. The dock uses the older Gen3 PCIe bus and has a maximum connection speed of 900MB/s due to the limitations of the Steam Deck’s USB-C port (as stated by Tom’s Hardware). But even so, it can be a great way to add some quick media storage or move those large modern game files without re-downloading them from Steam. The dock also features an HDMI port that can handle 4K at 60Hz or 2K at 120Hz, hardwired Gigabit Ethernet, and two USB-A ports for accessories. If you prefer, the dock also works with Android and iPad devices that support USB-C.

The HB0604 base is now available from Jsaux’s website for a reasonable $100. It also bundles 1TB and 2TB SSDs for $170 and $240, respectively.

author: Michael Crider, Staff Writer