Sd Memory Card Speed?

[+gupter]

Ok so i just bought a MeriPlat with Topo software. The topo software came with a 16mb card...which isn't big enough. So I decided to head to newegg.com to buy a 256mb card. Does card read/write speed matter for the GPSr unit?

 

This kington sd card:

2/mb sec or ths 5/mb sec? Looks like same card with different transfer speed? will the meriplat take advantage of the faster card, or is that a waste of 20 bucks?

 

They have the sandisk in two models also. what gives with the speed? Should i get the more expensive one...does it matter?

[+embra]

I'll be interested to see other opinions on this, but if you're using the card only in the GPS I'd say save your money and go for the slower one. Read/write speeds are important for cameras and for listening to MP3 files, but I don't think it creates a significant bottleneck in the Meridian.

 

I think that most of the moment-to-moment computations in the Meridian are using RAM. Except for reading and writing map files (which will happen infrequently), other SD activity will be with very small files.

Edited June 5, 2004 by embra

[+TotemLake]

I subjectively agree with Embra on this. I think the real difference in R/W speed will be noticable on the card reader, but not in the MeriPlat itself.

[+Mechanics Hands]

have you tried contacting magellan about this? I have asked them a few questions in the past and they have gotten back to me rather quickly.

[+gupter]

I figured if i contacted mag they would tell me to buy one of their official cards, so no, i have not asked them.

[+Lazyboy & Mitey Mite]

I figured if i contacted mag they would tell me to buy one of their official cards, so no, i have not asked them.

Are you finding good prices for the non mag cards?

[MacBandit]

Typically the limitation in Read/Write speed is not in the flash memory but in the Data I/O in the device it's being used it. Someone mentioned an advantage in digital cameras while this may be the case in the D-SLRs it's typically not the case in most cameras under $1,000. Also MP3 players I don't know of any that will take advantage of faster memory. I would have to say that I highly doubt that a GPS will take advantage of the faster memory.

 

As mentioned above the one place the faster memory will become an advantage is in a good card reader when you are copying your maps over to the card.

[Neo_Geo]

Since Gupter will need to save/write map data to the SD card, there could be a real difference in how long it takes to upload the map data. If he travels a lot and uploads different maps frequently (unexpected business trips [NTSB crash "Go Team"]), this could be a real issue.

 

I'm afraid that I'm not familiar with this unit, but I think it writes to the card using a SERIAL (RS-232) device (photo of the cable on Magellan's web site appears to be serial). If that is the case, then the write speed of the SD card is meaningless - RS-232 devices communicate at speeds in kbps, not MBps and therefor it would be a waste of $20.00. 256MB at serial speed... my Legend took 20 minutes to do 8MB, so 256MB would take about 10 hours!

 

If the writing device is USB or Firewire, then it could make a real difference.

 

As far as reading the map data and GPS performance, I think that any difference in read speed would be noticed when powering the unit on. It COULD mean the difference of a couple of seconds. It COULD also affect the lag time between switching to the map page and drawing the map - but that COULD also be a function of processor speed, diplay design limitations, or a combination of all three.

 

My advice to Gupter is to contact Magellan and ask them! Since they only sell cards up to 64MB (and he wants 256MB), then his fear of being told to buy one of their official cards is a non-issue. But if it WAS an issue, and they told me to buy one of their cards, I would tell them that their cards are WAAAAaaaaay too expensive!!!

 

I got a 512MB card (for my Garmin iQue) for $135.00 on eBay. That was back on April 5th. Now they're going for right around $100.00.

Edited June 6, 2004 by Neo_Geo

[+gupter]

Are you finding good prices for the non mag cards?

Check out the two links in my origional post from newegg.com...they have a kingston chip that is 256mb for 51 bucks. I thought that was pretty good. I have ordered tons of computer parts from them in the past with no problems.

[Neo_Geo]

Are you finding good prices for the non mag cards?

Check out the two links in my origional post from newegg.com...they have a kingston chip that is 256mb for 51 bucks. I thought that was pretty good. I have ordered tons of computer parts from them in the past with no problems.

I was just looking thru the Sunday newspaper ad inserts. Best Buy and Office Depot are selling 256MB for $49.00. That price is after rebates. No read/write specs in the ads.