Upgrading a SD Card

[+ThePolarBear]

I have a Magellan eXplorist 500 NA (ver 2.03) with a 2 GB SD card (Blue Memo).

 

The problem: The screen "refresh" rate is slow (in my opinion) when I zoom in/out on the map. It takes in the neighborhood of 5 seconds to refresh the map and waypoints every time I push a zoom button. I have loaded Mapsend street and topo map for CA and NV on the SD card.

 

The question: Is it worth replacing the current SD card with a "fast" SD card to improve refresh rate?

Has anybody done it and actually noticed an improvement? Or, is the current refresh rate "normal" and I'm just impatient?

 

Thank you for your answer...

[+embra]

Take this response with a grain of salt, since I've never done timed trials on this myself. I don't think a high-speed card does much good, since there's not that much reading of the SD card done. It may speed up the initial boot-up map display, but after that most of the map data reads are coming from internal memory.

 

You may have better luck speeding up redraws by reducing processor load. A couple of things to do this would include reducing detail level in the display, and avoiding track up map orientation.

[+geokitebuggy]

Here is some data from the Kingston Technology website:

 

SD Standard Memory Card 5 Mb/sec read, 1.5 Mb/sec write 2.0 Gb = $22

SD Elite Pro Memory Card 8.2 Mb/sec read, 7.7 Mb/sec write 2.0 Gb = $30

SD Ultimate Memory Card 21 Mb/sec read, 18 Mb/sec write 2.0 Gb = $31

 

Looks like the faster card might make a difference - if the GPSr can read data that fast.

 

Garmin specifically identifies incompatibility between SanDisk Ultra II cards and their x-series products. I don't know about Magellan.

 

For the $$ it might be worth a try. Please share your experience with the group.

[MN-Paradox]

SD cards and other items (flash drives for example) can get "worn out" after a lot of erasing/writing. Slowing response, occasional read/write errors, and not working are signs that you may want to look into a replacement.

 

SD cards are getting larger in size and dropping in price. I purchased a 4GB SD card the other day online for $25 or something. Make sure your device can work with the larger size cards before purchase, and keep backups of whatever data you put on to an SD card.

 

-G

[+leatherman]

Looks like the faster card might make a difference - if the GPSr can read data that fast.

 

That's just it. What is the read write speed of the 500LE?

 

I don't think that's the issue. I think you have to much info loaded at once. The Display/Draw speed is the issue. To many POI, to many waypoints.

Maps, POI, and user waypoints are loaded to the GPSr flash memory. They are in separate files. As the display is drawing these items to the screen it has to read all of these files and draw at the same time. I believe that it makes the processor lag.

[+IVxIV]

Well I found out with my digital camera that if I want to record videos and not "drop frames" then I needed to buy high-speed memory for it so, perhaps it's worth a shot to upgrade the chip in your GPSr for improved performance. The old saying "you get what you pay for" probably holds true if you buy cheap (slow) memory.

 

Also I wonder if memory cards benefit from a defragmentation like a traditional hard disk does?

[+Airmapper]

Also I wonder if memory cards benefit from a defragmentation like a traditional hard disk does?

 

I don't know but I do it anyway. I defrag my SD cards, and USB Flash drives.

 

I use a 64MB Card in my Lowrance, it is much faster than a 512, but I've never tried a "Fast" card. I save the big card for in the event I need more than the small one can hold, which is rare. I just use it as a spare for my camera most of the time.

[+RRLover]

Since the maps also contain a lot of other data, POIs and such, i believe the larger the map the slower the processing all around.

 

I've just gotten MapSend up and running, after having my XL for nearly a year (I didn't want to over-burden the old Sawtooth), I made the investment in Parallels and loaded an alien (to me) OS so that I could finally light the candle with my new laptop.

 

While playing around I built a map that just had my local environs (Seattle, Tacoma), it worked great, then one that is all of WA & OR, that isn't so great . . . s-l-o-o-o-w !! I'm going to delete it and build some that although less convenient, won't have my map jumping two blocks on every refresh.

 

I'm thinking that the refresh rate is more related to processor and quantity of data, than acquiring the data for the initial storage to ram. This theory also relates to the level of detail chosen (from the map display, Menu>Map Setup).

 

Try turning off the detail map all together and do a zoom in-zoom out, . . . See what I mean, on the XL way less data (ram cache) = much faster refresh. YMMV

 

Norm

The problem: The screen "refresh" rate is slow (in my opinion) when I zoom in/out on the map. It takes in the neighborhood of 5 seconds to refresh the map and waypoints every time I push a zoom button. I have loaded Mapsend street and topo map for CA and NV on the SD card.

Thank you for your answer...

Edited May 28, 2007 by RRLover