Alright, so picture this: you’re staring down the barrel of your gaming arsenal, the trusty Switch 2, and you need more room. Like, lots more room. Those MicroSD Express cards? Pricey as heck. I checked, and honestly, left me feeling like I was about to buy a piece of space tech. Anyway, some brave souls over on YouTube — shoutout to Better Gaming — decided to MacGyver this problem with a little DIY magic. There’s this open-source gizmo, an adapter, they tinkered with. Cool, right? Well, it didn’t exactly go off without a hitch.
The SDEX2M2 project (try saying that three times fast!), which sounds super techy, is meant to let your Switch 2 hang out with M.2 NVMe 2230 SSDs. Now, that’s a mouthful. But stay with me! The adapter’s all about using the PCIe roots of MicroSD Express, basically trying to bridge two tech worlds. Nerdy, but fascinating. I found myself wondering why that even mattered, but curiosity has its hooks in me, what can I say?
Now, Better Gaming took those plans, whipped up some PCBs — like multiplying Gremlins, but in tech form — and soldered away. Imagine four-times-the-charm soldering, sweat and breath held. That last PCB? Hallelujah, it worked! Slid it right into the Switch 2, no sweat. The console recognized it. But oh boy, then came the drama.
Enter error code “2016-0641” — no clue what it means, but sounds menacing. I imagined little digital gremlins giggling at the confusion. The Switch 2 basically threw a fit and said no-can-do on accessing the card. Back to the drawing board, huh? The catch: these adapters aren’t all chatty with the Switch 2’s inner workings. Turns out, our adapters lack the convo skills of MicroSD Express cards. These cards have a smooth-talking controller inside (lucky them), and the Switch 2 misses that sweet talk when it’s absent.
Apparently, the whiz kids behind the SDEX2M2 are cooking up a fix, dreaming up a new version with an FPGA to play nice as a pretend MicroSD controller. Sure, I’m crossing my fingers for them — aren’t we all fighting the uphill battle of limited storage these days?
So, if this magic FPGA thing comes to fruition, we might have a chunky but functional alternative to those wallet-draining MicroSD cards. Ever see those prices lately? Yowza. Why spend over $50 on a 256GB MicroSD when you could bag a 1TB NVMe SSD for not much more? Math isn’t my thing, but even I see the win here.
Anyway, that’s the scoop. Feels better to ramble about it, honestly. And hey, if you want to stay updated on more tech adventures, give Tom’s Hardware a follow on Google News. Catch you on the flip side!
