microSD card capacity

[Tapper]

First, I want to thank all the folks who have posted so much excellent information on GPS topics. It has been helpful as I decide to purchase my first GPS unit.

For various reasons, I am considering either a Garmin 60Cx or a 76Cx. It seems that the only functional difference is the size of the microSD card and the 76 floats. (Yes?)

I will be using this to navigate around several rather large Pennsylvania game land and stae forest areas. I plan on getting map source to go with the unit.

1. Is there some rule of thumb I can use to determine how much map area and the number of them, I can get onto a 64 vs 128 MB card?
2. If I swap cards, do I lose the waypoints associated with the loaded map, or do they stay on a "hard drive"?

I hope you can get the idea of what it is I'm trying to understand. Basically, where does the information go and how much map can you get onto a certain size card?

Thanks,

Tapper

[Siskiyou]

A 1 GB Micro SD cardwill cost you between $20 and $40.

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The average map size in US Topo is .24 MB.  To esitimate the number of maps a card will hold divided the size of the card by the map size.  In the case of a 128 MB card it will hold approximately 533 maps from US Topo.  I was able to load 533+ US Topo maps on to my 128MB card because a lot of the areas I selected lacked human developement.  The more developement the more space a map takes.  I had maps loaded covering 90% of California, part of NV, OR, WA, ID, and Mt. on the 128 MB card.

If you swap cards the wapoints will remain in the fixed memory of the unit.  There is a way to save the waypoints on the card but I have not done that.  I have never ran out of waypoints.  And every once and while I delete waypoints that I will not use again.

When you have the MapSource software I recommend that you go to My Documents and create a Folder Called Garmin Waypoints, then open up your MapSource software with you gps connected and download your waypoints to your computer, and do a SAVE AS, and save into your Garmin Waypoints folder.  You may want name the file 76CxMMDDYYYY that way you have a date for it.  After saving the file to your computer the waypoints are still on your Desktop.  Reload them into your gps.  Before you do the reload you might take advantage of the time and create a few waypoints using the MapSource software.  These new Waypoints can be part of the return package to your unit.
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From one of my earlier post.

"I spent a long time selecting every Topo map from the Pacific Ocean to the Eastern boundary of the Rocky Mt. States and from Canada to Mexico.  I also loaded the City Navigator maps for Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, Florida, and Nevada.  I also selected maps for Boise, ID, and Denver, CO., along with City Navigator maps along I-80 going East.  I also loaded maps for Michigan.  This amounted to 1731 maps and 904.5 MB of space on the 1GB micro SD chip. Selecting so many Topo maps was rather time consuming.  I had to take a break for cookies and milk."

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With either unit you will recieve a chip large enough to give you a lot of playtime.  Back when I started out with the Garmin Legend I was able to manage the 8MB of memory between chunks of three National Forest, and private forest land.

I have found myself bouncing around the Western States and the ability to have more detailed maps loaded on a unit is an advantage.  I must say that the Garmin basemap in the Legend served me well when I found myself suddenly out of State. 

So you may want to hold back on buying a second chip unit it comes on sale.  And I would not buy one less then 1GB.  I recently put my orginal 128MB chip back to work when I installed it in my new camera phone.  I can now put the chip in the SD holder that came with my 1GB chip and download pictures to my computer.

If you get the 76Cx with the 128MB chip it will cover your needs in Pennsylvania.  Additional needs depend on your external travels.

In my case if I was to travel to the Mid West, and along the Eastern Sea Board, I would get a second 1 GB chip to load all the mapping software East of the Mississippi River.  I would also save all my waypoints before leaving.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________From Garmin
Q. What is the largest size microSD card that I can use in my X-series GPS unit?
A. At this time, the 2 GB cards are the largest microSD cards that can be used for the X-series GPS units. However, the X-series GPS units are not compatible with the San Disk Ultra II cards and we do not recommend using the Ultra II micro SD cards with any of the X units.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Who knows if the price is right on a 2 GB card I might get one.    I would never give away my Date of Birth for a free 2 GB card in this age of identity thieft.  Beaware nothing is for free!

I bumbed into an issue when I tried to load some maps from the US Topo East CD on to a chip already loaded with US Topo West maps.  I guess the best answer for the problem was to use a different chip for each CD.   ****Go to the Garmin software updates and there is a patch that will fix the probllem.  January 14, 2007 edit.

Qt.

"For various reasons, I am considering either a Garmin 60Cx or a 76Cx. It seems that the only functional difference is the size of the microSD card and the 76 floats. (Yes?)"

Ans.  When I was making a post the other day it suddenly dawned on there was another reason that I like the 76 series over the 60 series.  It is the layout.  With the lower portion of the 76C/76Cx clupped in my hand I can readly operate the buttons on the units with my thumb.  It serves the same purpose as a pistol grip.  I have a medium hand and this works great or me.  The 60 series and the Magellan eXplorist series have the buttons on the bottom of the unit.  This makes them a two-handed operation. 

[Tapper]

Wow! Siskiyou -- Thanks for the superb answer. I now have the perspective I needed.

Tapper

[Friar_Tuck]

Tapper,
I agree.  There are a few people that understand this new fangled stuff, but dang few that can explain it to people like me without making us feel stupid just for asking!  Siskiyou is one of those few.  he is the reason I bought a Garmin, I figured with him as an asset here, I would be better off with the brand he has!
Jim

[JJHACK]

If we cannot use the UltraII's then who's do we use? How do you know if the sandisk is re-named by another seller, but is really still the San disk product?

In other words what brand at 2g is working fine so we could look for that particular brand to use. I need one bad and I will buy it as soon as I know!

Thanks for the great info!

[Siskiyou]

There is a lot of confusion in the San Disk SD card world.  For example they produce the standard SD Card, the Mini SD card, the UltraII SD card, and the Micro SD Card. 

Originally the Micro SD card was called TransFlash.  I purchased my 1GB Micro SD/TransFlash card from amazon.com.  The Micro SD card comes with a standard size SD cardholder so that you can use it with many computer card readers.   


http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Flash-memory-card-microSD/dp/B000HCGAFK/sr=8-5/qid=1168237122/ref=pd_bbs_5/103-3937081-6007836?ie=UTF8&s=electronics


http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000JLP5UK/ref=dp_cp_ob_title_3/103-3937081-6007836

I have given you three links on Amazon.  The price is cheaper on one link.  Note that is says bulk.  In this case I do not know what that means. 

I purchased my card directly from Amazon.  A quick check show a big price gap between Amazon and the other two dealers listed on Amazon.
 
 http://www.amazon.com/Sandisk-Micro-SD-2-GB/dp/B000JLP5UK/sr=1-3/qid=1168239288/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3/103-3937081-6007836?ie=UTF8&s=electronics

Externally the Ultra II SD card looks like a standard Micro SD card, but the programming within the card is different and they will not work with Garmin GPS units.

Think Micro SD.

Some users believe that the 2GB card slows the processor down in the Garmin gps units because of the load the data puts on the unit.  They recommend splitting the load between two or more cards.  I do not have a 2 GB card and cannot address that issue.  Others think the 2GB card is great

[JJHACK]

Just for those who want a reference on memory capacity.

I just loaded all the topo's for Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and northern California from Sacramento north.

Then I loaded all the city navigator maps for the same area. I have only used about  1/2 the 1g memory. That's a massive amount of data in this little bugger!

I doubt you can use the 2g memory to full potential becuase even though there is a lot of room, there is a limit to how many individual maps that can be stored. I think its like 250-275 or something like that. It may be possible to fill the map capacity of the 1g before you use up the memory capacity?

[Siskiyou]

I believe the software will handle a little over 2000 maps.

[JJHACK]

That may be a better number. I recalled it was something like 250, but it may very well have been 2500?

[Siskiyou]

A user needs to treat the different MapSource programs as individuals.  U.S. Topo can be considered old, and North America City Navigator 8v as new.  As I have written before there appears to be a conflict when loading EAST/WEST data on the same unit using U.S. Topo.  I thought the problem was I, but I have learned others have found the same issue.

In turn I have read that users have loaded all of City Navigator 8v on a 2 GB card, which seems correct.  City Navigator 8v contains 309 maps, with 1634 MB of data.  Which allows it to operate within the unit software limit.  U.S. Topo has 6,637 maps for 1,593 MB of data.  I believe the reason City Navigator is more functional is that it has less maps covering the United States, and each individual map covers a larger area.  This design may allow the software writer a little more flexibility.  The Topo maps contain less data per map, while City Navigator is crammed with data.  So the software design must make the difference.  The break down of maps in City Navigator must be designed around the memory limits of the 60C, 76C, and the smaller Mapping Garmin units that come stock with small micro SD cards.

I believe the reason there are so many maps in Map Source, U.S. Topo is that it follows the old USGS paper map format for 1:100,000-scale topographic paper maps.

Currently I have 1731 maps loaded on the 1GB micro SD card in the 76Cx.  The load has all the Topo maps from the Eastern Rockies to the Pacific Ocean, and from the Mexican border to Canada.  I chose to load from the Rockies West with City Navigator, plus the I-80 Corridor to the Mid West, and the State of Michigan.  I have also included part of Florida, all of B.C. and Southern Alberta in the load.  This used slightly more then 900 MB of the 1GB card.  It is recommend that you do not use the full volume of a card, because the system needs some of the memory to operate.  If I were to plan a trip in the future East of the Mississippi, or out of Country, I would purchase a second memory card.  Garmin continues to update both MapSource and unit software limits continue to expand.  From Garmin Map Source update:

Changes made from version 6.11.5 to 6.11.6:
·   This version of MapSource no longer supports Windows 98, Windows ME, and Windows NT.
·   Fixed an issue with transferring map sets larger than 2 GB to units. MapSource supports transferring map sets up to 4 GB in size. Note that some units do not support map sets over 2 GB in size.
·   Fixed an issue with creating a waypoint from Japanese address search result.
·   Fixed an issue with MapSource not finding Google Earth Pro when installed.

The user needs to work with the limits imposed by his unit, and second by MapSource.

The World Traveler may want to load a memory chip with Garmin’s MapSource World Map, which is similar to the Basemap for the United States and Canada, which comes in Garmin Mapping units.  The World Map would give the traveler a foundation, and reference points to create his own maps of unmapped regions.  World Map is broken into 1944 maps, and totals 159 MB.  You can tell that it is rather thin in the data department.
Go to the Garmin support and update page and sign-up for the free e-mail notification of updates for MapSource and your gps unit.

http://www.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=209

[Tapper]

My Garmin 76Cx is on the way!!!

Thanks to all.

Tapper