This new mini SSD for gaming handhelds looks so much better than a microSD card

Chinese manufacturer Biwin has officially launched its new format for handheld PC storage, which could make the traditional microSD card obsolete. The mini SSD, which we've already seen teased in some recently announced handhelds, can be popped in and out at will, much like an SD card, but offers massively faster performance.

The mini SSD is only slightly bigger than an SD card when it comes to physical size, with storage capacities that range from 512GB to 2TB at present. Whether or not this unusual piece of PC games hardware goes mainstream, however, will depend on whether it's easy for other manufacturers to adopt, and whether it's reliable, especially when it's up against the M.2 2030 drives on our best gaming SSD guide.

Biwin announced at the OneXPlayer's Fall 2025 launch event that OneXPlayer handhelds would be the first to launch with mini SSD support, and confirmed some of its specs. While it uses a proprietary design, the mini SSD does conform to the PCIe 4.0 and the NVMe 1.4 standards.

According to the company, it isn't as fast as a 4x PCIe 4.0 M.2 2230 drive, such as the TeamGroup MP44S, which we'd typically see in a handheld, but its pair of PCIe 4.0 lanes still enables it to offer read and write speeds of up to 3,718MB/s 3,415MB/s respectively - much quicker than the 950MB/s micro SD Express cards used by the Nintendo Switch 2, for example.

That would give this format speeds that are just slightly higher than a top-spec PCIe 3.0 SSD, while also rating significantly higher than a microSD card, where a typical UHS-I spec card might only reach sequential read and write speeds of 240MB/s and 140MB/s.

Speed aside, the mini SSD's dimensions are 0.59 x 0.66 x 0.05 inches (15 x 17 x 1.4mm), giving it a significantly smaller footprint than an M.2 2230 drive. That portability, along with its speed enhancements and easy-install system, make it a better option, on paper at least, than an SD or microSD card.

OneXPlayer has been teasing a whole set of new devices recently, including the OneXPlayer SuperX, a hybrid tablet-handheld combo. That device also features what it described at the time as an "external mini SSD slot," which would allow you to use one of these Biwin drives in place of a standard SSD or microSD card. We've also seen support for this format teased in a recent GPD Win 5 promotion.

Biwin has confirmed it will start to bundle it with some of OneXPlayer's devices, including the OneXPlayer X1 Air, an Intel Lunar Lake-powered handheld with a 10.95-inch display. Bought separately, the 512GB model will reportedly cost $56 (399 CNY), with the 1TB costing approximately $84 (599 CNY), according to a report by IT Home. Pricing for the 2TB model, however, isn't confirmed, nor is a global launch schedule.

Those prices would certainly make it an affordable option for gamers. However, a big problem on the horizon for the mini SSD, as impressive as it might seem, is long-term adoption. With the format in its infancy, Biwin will need more than just one or two niche handheld manufacturers to jump on board for it to become a success. Still, it's good to see innovation in the gaming industry, and we'll be curious to see whether it ends up getting widely adopted.

Make sure to check out our best handheld guide next if you're thinking about a portable gaming rig for your setup, although these devices require you to stick with a microSD card or M.2 SSD if you decide on any future storage updates.

Excited for a faster and more versatile storage option for handhelds? Let us know your thoughts on Biwin's innovative new format by starting a conversation in our Discord server with other readers and staff.