Don’t look at anything less than 256GB, though higher capacities like 400GB or even 1TB are available if you see the need for them. There are a lot of different specs for SD Cards, but we think you should just buy the Samsung Evo+ 256GB UHS-I microSDXC U3 memory card.
Capacity: 256GB | Read/Write Speeds: 95/90MB/s
Additionally, this SD card is no slouch when it comes to speed, so you won’t have to wait around for games to load. The only downside to this card is that the Nintendo branding comes with a price hike over a standard SanDisk card - and once the card is in your Switch, you’ll never see it anyway.
Capacity: 256GB | Read/Write Speeds: 100/90MB/s
What’s surprising is just how cheap this card is, costing little more than a 256GB card and offering half again the capacity. This is easily the best value card you can buy for the Switch.
Capacity: 400GB | Read/Write Speeds: 100MB/s read, write unspecified
Capacity: 256GB| Read/Write Speeds: 90MB/s read, write unspecified |
The only downside is the eye-watering price tag. At more than $230, this card is more expensive than a brand new Nintendo Switch Lite, but for the dedicated gaming enthusiast with deep pockets and a huge game library, this is the obvious choice.
Capacity: 1TB | Read/Write Speeds: 160/90MB/s | Class: U3
What makes this SD card really special is its 100MB/sec read speed, which is great. It drastically reduces load times and beefs up data transfer speeds to make short work of any task to which it’s turned. Lexar also provides increased peace of mind by offering an excellent warranty and a free downloadable copy of their Image Rescue Software so that if something does go wrong you can recover your data.
Capacity: 128GB | Read/Write Speeds: 100/90MB/s | Class: 10 U3
What to Look For in SD Cards for Nintendo Switch
Brand
Capacity
Your budget is really your only limit to storage capacity on SD cards. However, it’s not always wise to shell out hundreds of dollars for terabytes of data. Often super high capacity comes at the cost of speed, and you probably don’t need that much storage space anyway. A 256GB card offers a good balance between price, performance, and storage capacity. If your needs are more modest, a 64GB card could cut it. If you plan to have an all-digital library, then a 512GB or even 1TB card wouldn’t be amiss.
Speed
Most modern SD cards offer enough speed, but as a rule of thumb 90MB/s should be considered the minimum for read and write speeds. Remember that the faster the card the quick the load times and the better your Switch will function. Write speeds tend to be lower than read speeds, but for gaming purposes, the read speeds are more important. Most of the cards on this list are Class 10 and many are U3, meaning they offer read/write speeds that are three times as fast as regular U1 Class 10 cards.
