Alright, so let me tell you a story that’s kind of wild, and I won’t lie, I got a bit lost in it. Something about MicroSD Express cards being, uh, ridiculously pricey. Like, who has that kind of money lying around? Anyway, this whole thing has crafty folks poking around for, you know, cheaper ways to amp up their Switch 2’s storage. I stumbled on Better Gaming’s YouTube vid where they’re playing around with this DIY open-source MicroSD adapter. It’s supposed to buddy up with M.2 NVMe 2230 SSDs, which—surprise, surprise—didn’t exactly work out right away.
Here’s where it gets techy, which isn’t really my strong suit but let’s roll with it. They called it the SDEX2M2 project (I mean, catchy enough, right?). It’s all about exploiting MicroSD Express’s, um, PCIe whatever to help it hook up with NVMe SSDs. Wrapping my head around SD Express 7.1 makes me feel like I’ve wandered into a sci-fi movie, tapping into PCIe Gen 3×1 with the NVMe protocol… whatever that really means. But it’s cool because it feels like the future.
Now, back to soldering stuff. Better Gaming dived in, got some PCBs made, and soldered on the bits. Honestly, that’s dedication. But four boards later—feel the pain yet?—the adapter finally took a breath and lived. They tested it with a Corsair MP600 Mini. The tech gods teased us all because the Switch 2 recognized it. I felt that glimmer of hope.
Wait, boom—problem time! The thing threw out this error code, 2016-0641. Suddenly, the Switch 2 couldn’t see the microSD gig. Whomp, whomp. Adapters apparently don’t speak the same language as the Switch’s expected little MicroSD Express controllers. Talk about lost in translation. NVMe SSDs have their own vibe, but they’re not in tune with SD Express 7.1. A tech wallflower situation, I guess.
Oh, the plot thickens. The SDEX2M2 crew clocked this hiccup and are supposedly tinkering away on a version with an FPGA doohickey. No clue what FPGA stands for, but fingers crossed it acts as a makeshift MicroSD Express buffer—or whatever.
If they nail it, it could be a real game-changer. MicroSD cards light up the budget meter at around 25 cents per gig. So a chonky 256GB card costs more than a fifty. But if you’re eyeing a 1TB NVMe SSD like that Corsair, it’s around 90 bucks. Big storage, small price. Right? If it doesn’t make the Switch 2 look like it swallowed a brick during handheld mode play, then we’re golden.
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