The Nintendo Switch 2 will support microSD Express cards, according to several newly surfaced SKUs believed to belong to some of its accessories. This leak hence suggests that Nintendo's upcoming console will offer massive storage technology improvements compared to its predecessor.

The Switch 2 is widely rumored to have entered mass production in the final stretch of 2024, possibly as early as late September. This belief is reinforced by a massive influx of leaks detailing the console's hardware that have been surfacing online since Q4 2024.

In a continuation of this trend, several GameStop stock keeping units (SKUs) said to belong to unannounced Switch 2 accessories leaked in early January 2025. The product labels, originally shared by Reddit user Opposite-Chemistry96, mention a trio of "Switch 2 Exp Micro SD Card" products, with capacities ranging from 256GB to 512GB. These designations appear to refer to cards based on the microSD Express standard, a storage interface that's significantly more advanced than the one supported by the Switch.

Nintendo Switch 2 May Offer 900% Faster microSD Transfer Speeds

The Nintendo Switch supports UHS-I microSD cards, which offer theoretical maximum transfer speeds of around 104 MB per second. In practice, even the best-in-class products based on this interface typically cap out at approximately 95 MB/s. Meanwhile, the microSD Express standard can feasibly achieve transfer speeds in the ballpark of 985 MB/s. This 900% improvement stems from the technology's reliance on the non-volatile memory express (NVMe) protocol for highly parallel data transfer, the same one used by the fastest modern SSDs.

UHS-I vs microSD Express Standard