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Steam Deck only supports the smallest M.2 drives, the 2230 series, as standard. However, a Twitter user posted a picture of himself modifying the Steam Deck to make the console work at larger sizes. Then an employee issued warnings.

Valve developer warns about Steam Deck

Lawrence Yang, a designer at Valve who is currently working on Steam Deck, responded to a GameSpot article on Twitter describing the mode that allows it to expand storage capacity with higher-memory M.2 drives. Yang said, “Hi, please don’t do that. The charger IC gets too hot and nearby thermal pads should not be moved. Also, most of the 2242 m.2 drives draw more power and heat up more than the Deck was designed for. This mode may seem to work, but it will significantly shorten the life of the Steam Deck.”

Hi, please don’t do this. The charger IC gets very hot and nearby thermal pads should not be moved. In addition, most 2242 m.2 drives draw more power and get hotter than what Deck is designed for. This mod may appear to work but will significantly shorten the life of your Deck.

— Lawrence Yang (@lawrenceyang) June 26, 2022

These warnings included moving the thermal pads within the system. Twitter user @TheSmcelrea seems to have ignored Valve’s warnings. Although Valve is open to system modding, the warnings seem worthy of consideration, even if it has partnered with iFixit to provide replacement or additional parts, or even provided CAD files of corner guards that players can extract from their own 3D printer for the device. In particular, Yang, one of the designers of the device, is very opposed to this process.