How Does Garmin "x" Series Use Extra Memory

[+user13371]

Looking for some Garministas to educate me...

 

Lowrance, Magellan, and Garmin all offer units with expandable memory. Garmin uses microSD while the others use standard SD cards.

 

With Magellan, when you plug your eXplorist into your USB port, the GPS appears as a disk drive on your desktop and you can copy data files directly to/from the unit. You can also use the USB cable for NMEA data.

 

The Lowrance units have an older RS232 connection, no USB. You can use a serial cable for NMEA data, but to transfer waypoints/routes, or load maps you have to take the SD card out and put it in a card reader.

 

SO... how do the new Garmin's put maps and waypoints onto the memory card? Does it connect to the computer as a mass storage device, like the Magellans? Or does it require a Garmin-specific application to send/receive?

[robertlipe]

It does not show up as a mass storage device; it still uses garmin protocol to transfer waypoints, tracks, routes, and pvt data. If you remove the transfflash and mount it in a card reader, it does show up as a FAT volume on the various OSes.

[+user13371]

... If you remove the transfflash and mount it in a card reader, it does show up as a FAT volume...

And on that volume, iis it possible/practical to copy GPS data directly? Edited March 27, 2006 by lee_rimar

[+dhbaird]

... If you remove the transfflash and mount it in a card reader, it does show up as a FAT volume...

And on that volume, iis it possible/practical to copy GPS data directly?

 

I have directed a Map d/l from Mapsource to the SD which appears on the list as a device. It is much, much faster to do it this way. Probably took me 10% of the time as when I d/l to the Garmin directly.

 

It does appear that waypoints, routes and tracks need to be loaded through the unit.

 

Garmin just released a new custom POI uploader and I think that they go to the SD while in the unit as well. Will find that out next week.

[GeoidPS]

The current POI Loader has been out since January '06. There is no Garmin that loads waypoints, tracks, routes to the SD card.

Unfortunantly, get out the hankerchiefs cause here's a direct quote from a Garmin developer:

"Most likely though, it has to do with the operating system that each uses and how it locates the database. With maps, you can have 1 set internal and 1 set on a card (each set can contain multiple maps, of course). However, since only one map is being accessed at a time (when doing things like address searches, displaying maps on the screen, etc), and since it is only a read operation, it can have several locations to read from.

 

When it comes to other data (track logs, waypoints, etc), you are writing/modifying the data. You can't require it to be on the SD card, what if that runs out of room because it's full of maps? You have to have a section of internal memory solely dedicated to it to guarantee that you can offer a certain number of waypoints / track points. Since you're storing it internally for that reason, what happens if you were to allow more storage on an SD card? Well, now you're writing to 2 databases and having to combine them for all operations. If you have a 2 GB SD card completely full of track logs, the unit will not have the memory capable of combining those 2 databases (not to mention, which do you write new data to?).

 

You also can't have a mirrored copy on the card, because then you're again limited to the size of the internal storage for track points / waypoints.

 

Granted, these are my personal hunches, and may not be properly based on fact (due to my lack of knowledge of the storage of those, as well as me being at home and not having code to check if I had the time). But personally, with my hunches, I believe that Garmin is doing it properly and doesn't have much of an option to allow these additional items on SD cards."

[+user13371]

Maps are read-only and other data are read/write - true. So what? Magellan and Lowrance both address these issues successfully.

Edited March 27, 2006 by lee_rimar

[NewZealand]

When it comes to other data (track logs, waypoints, etc), you are writing/modifying the data.

It doesn't matter. With Beta-Software 2.62 you can write the tracklog to the SD-card, only limited by the size of free space on the SD card.

Don't see a reason why routes and waypoints shouldn't also be written and read from the SD-card.

Custom POI's can currently also be written to the SD card, organized in different databases (e.g. I have ATM machines-, mountain huts-, gas station-database on my SD card).

[erwinh]

It doesn't matter. With Beta-Software 2.62 you can write the tracklog to the SD-card, only limited by the size of free space on the SD card.

 

Are you sure about that? So the 10000 tracklog entries is not the limit anymore? Now that would be very nice!

[NewZealand]

It doesn't matter. With Beta-Software 2.62 you can write the tracklog to the SD-card, only limited by the size of free space on the SD card.

 

Are you sure about that? So the 10000 tracklog entries is not the limit anymore? Now that would be very nice!

Yes, try it out!

The internal memory track log wraps, but the tracklog on the SD card is just written until the card is full (the tracklog files are saved using the current date (year,month,day), so you have a log for every day or a maximum of 24 hours in one logfile.

[erwinh]

The internal memory track log wraps, but the tracklog on the SD card is just written until the card is full (the tracklog files are saved using the current date (year,month,day), so you have a log for every day or a maximum of 24 hours in one logfile.

 

Now.... that is so cool. Thanks for this!