Official Answer: Nuvi - SD microSD Card Size - Garmin FAQ

It may be a good answer, and it may be the "official" answer, but it's wrong. I have an 8gb card that works perfectly on my 750, and others in this thread have mentioned using other sizes on various units.

I am using a 4GB SDHC card with my nuvi 650 without any difficulty. Others have reported the same and even larger SDHC cards.

Gary Hayman

Using a 4gb SDHC card in a 760. The nuvi is connected to the Alpine head unit with a V-LINK cable and it sounds great plaing my MP3's. That and I don't have to worry about hearing the nivi give tts directions even at freeway speeds with the windows down in my diesel truck. Good times

I'm using an 8gb SDHC class 4 card with no real problems, but my Nuvi 750 (fully updated ver 4.10 and all other files) seems to have a limit of about 2500 MP3's. The card still has room to spare but any additional files added past 2500 are ignored. When I go to the media player it takes a VERY long time to search and sort all the files. As far as I know SDHC cards are made up to 32gb but what's the point of using one that large if the Nuvi can't handle any more files? I suppose if you had a few very large files like talking books or old radio plays you could fill a large SDHC card with less than 2500 files. It seems it's the quantity of files that's the limit, not the size of the card.

I wish my Zumo would read more than 1,000. I have a lot more mp3's than that. Maybe a fluke? Or was it an upgrade made to the Nuvii series? My 660 would only read 1k also.

I used my 16gb SDHC card in my 660, before selling it and moving to the Zumo. Garmin is slow to update the info on the website, guess it isn't worth their time?

Great - thanks for the info! Interested to hear if the 32Gb works as well.

Looking today on Garmin support site, I see a slightly reworded answer compared to the OP's initial post, but it means exactly the same thing:

---- Garmin ----
Question: What is the largest SD card that my nüvi can use?

Answer:
If your nüvi has the latest version of operating software, there is no limit to the size of data card that it can accept. The nüvi units are compatible with both normal Secure Digital (SD) data cards and Secure Digital High Capacity (SDHC) data cards.

If you need to update the software in your nüvi, you can do so using our WebUpdater program which can be downloaded from our website: www.garmin.com/webupdater

Last modified on: 10/01/2008

------

An 8 GB SDHC card works fine in my Nuvi 200.

Dear Mike,

I am now using an 8gb micro sd card in my NUVI 880.
As soon as 16gb is available to me, I will try it.

cheers
chris

Glad I found this post. I'm planning on giving my wife some audiobooks with some 4GB SD cards. Glad that they'll work!

Picked up the SDHC card for $14.99!!!

Lots of room for more MP3s

I used to have a 2Gb SD card limit on my 660 until updating to software version 4.70. I now use SDHC cards, and now have 850 songs on a Patriot 4Gb card.

The problems I have noted (before and after the update, with <2Gb and >2 Gb cards) is:

1. I have to boot the 660 with the card installed for it to see the files on the card - there is no hot swapping.

2. It takes about 4 minutes for the 660 to read everything on the SD card. Until this, it has two problems:

a. The "ready to navigate" map screen will not update until the SD card is "read."
b. The MP3 screen is blank until the SD card is "read."

The glitch appears regardless of the size of the card, but seems to take longer for the "read" the more data you have on the SD card.

Aside from the XP-like boot-up wait when I have a music library on board, everything works very well.

gordyo:

Can you set up a route and/or access the entire menu when the card is being read? Does it make operation a bit more sluggish? Is there ever a pause/gap in between songs? I have a 2Gb card and am wondering if it is worth upgrading. Did your 660 ever show any of the same symptoms with your 2Gb card?

I sent a query to Garmin tech support on this issue and got the following reply:

"Our devices work with any SD card, but we recommend cards no larger than 4 GB. Cards with a larger capacity than this can cause the unit to operate slower than normal. Please let us know if we can be of any additional assistance."

With Best Regards,

Dan R

Product Support Specialist

Garmin International

FYI: i've been using my patriot 4gb sd card for 3 years now.

Can someone confirm that the Garmin 350 will take an SD add-on card, either 8 or 16 GB. I'm running system software version 6.0.

I already am running a 4 GB Transcend SD card but have not tried an SDHC card.

Thanks.
Fred

Thanks!

I tried a higher meg card, (around 8G) several months ago, It was an HDSC card. My Nuvi 780 ignored it completely, I found that my card reader and Nuvi Did not have the capacity to read the higher speed HDSC cards. Has this really been resolved??? I haven't tried it (8gbit 32 meg (speed) card in the Nuvi since, Wonder if it would work in the future.

I bought a 16 GB class 6 card & it works with my Garmin Nuvi 350 with version 6.0 system software with no difficulties.

Nice job Garmin!! I know it didn't work a year ago with an SDHC card so it must be the system software updates.

Fred

Sounds Great!!! I am going to pick up a bigger card for my 770. Not sure what I will put on it but at least I will have all that extra room!

I can confirm that a 16gb SD card works in my Garmin 265WT. I wont be using it for my GPS (cause I have no clue what I'd put on it) but I thought I'd test it out.

Hope this helps.

I'm using the 8GB version.
Works just fine.

I haven't found a reason to use SD cards on my Nuvi yet, but if I need to, at least I know I am not limited.

Good to know thanks

Dear MJ,

I would have thought the card would have to be inserted in the Garmin unit in order to test it. I cannot imagine how one would test it outside the Garmin 265WT.

david

A technique called "Virtual Osmosistic Testing."

Works great in alot of Sales and Marketing firms!

I bought nuvi 760 recently, and now I am trying to use 16 Gb Transcend SDHC card with it.
When i try to format it through nuvi, it says, cant do it. and when i format it in my pc, put music on it etc, the nuvi doesnt recognize it.
updated software and all, still doesnt work.
any suggestions?

Certain brands of sdhc cards do not work with nuvi's... I'm not sure if that included the Transcend card..

Edit: A short search provided the following information:
http://www.poi-factory.com/node/19044

So i don't know why you are having a problem...

Check the speed of the card. I don't know what the read / write speed is on the Nuvi, but this is a common occurence with digital cameras. People will buy a digital point and shoot and try to use a high speed, high capacity memory card (designed for Digital SLR's) thinking they won't need more than one card, but the camera can't read or write as fast as the card requires.

I can confirm that a SanDisc 4GB SDHC Extreme III card will work on the Garmin Nuvi 350

The USB 2.0 standard transfers data at 480 Mbps. The SD 2.0 standard that supports SDHC media has designated guaranteed write speed classes for the cards. Class 2,4,6, writes data at 2 Mbps, 4 Mbps, 6 Mbps respectively. The read speed is generally 15 to 60 Mbps for any card. That being said, slower devices work fine using faster media cards because the card can store the data as fast as the device is writing to it, but faster devices have issues when they can write to a card faster than its class rating was designed to store the data and will have issues.

Hope this helps.

Many of the SDHC have R/W speeds of 15 to 30 MB/s (Sandisk Ultra and Extreme Series).

The SDHC format was revised in late 2008 (SDA 2.0 spec) to increase the read / write capacity of the cards and IS NOT backwards compatible. If the HOST device was manufactured in 2008 it MAY be compatible with the SDA 2.0 spec. If it was manufactured prior to 2008 it will not be compatible with the newer cards that meet the SDHC 2.0 spec.

All this is directly form the Sandisk web site if you need to find a little more info on it.

Edit:
Here are the actual read / write speeds in megabytes, not megabits (Mb). The SDHC standard allows for the 100x and greater r/w speeds. Non SDHC is limited to 66x
6x 0.9 MB/s
32x 4.8 MB/s
40x 6.0 MB/s
66x 10.0 MB/s
100x 15.0 MB/s
133x 20.0 MB/s
150x 22.5 MB/s
200x 30.0 MB/s
266x 40.0 MB/s
300x 45.0 MB/s

The classes mentioned previously only refer to the minimum gauranteed write speed of a card. The actual speed can be much faster.

I emailed Garmin support (today 3/10/2009)for clarification of their position. I asked if SDHC was supported and what size card were accepted. Response was a little incomplete, but good enough to allow me to buy what I want.

*****************************

Thank you for contacting Garmin International.

I would be happy to help you with this. Our devices work with any SD card, but we recommend cards no larger than 4 GB. Cards with a larger capacity than this can cause the unit to operate slower than normal. Please let us know if we can be of any additional assistance.

With Best Regards,

Dan R

Product Support Specialist
Garmin International
913-397-8200
800-800-1020
913-440-8280 (fax) Att: Dan R
www.garmin.com

I disagree with support saying any SD card will work. I bought an AData 4 GB card that works fine with a bunch of other devices I tried it with, but won't work with my 765T. A SanDisk Extreme III 4 GB card works fine.

Par for the course. I use a Sandisk 8MB Class 2 card and it works great in my 760. I run FW v 4.6 and do not have any of the issues being reported in the 4.6 firmware discussion.

go figure - I guess we are at the mercy of the luck of the draw.

It looks like there has been considerable discussion on this topic, but I may start looking for a micro SD of at least 4 GB.

Actually, that is the case for many of my electronic equipment. HP for instance, says any SD Card will work on my computer. But for some reason a panasonic card will not, yet will work in my other devices.

Great news, Thanks!

I have a 16GB SDHC in my 660, but it only shows about 1000 songs. I tried removing songs from sub folders but it doesn't help. There doesn't seems to be a way around the 1000 song cap. I have 2600 songs on the card, but I can't play most of them. I wonder if there is any chance they will ever update this. Anybody know a work around for this (besides using two smaller cards and swapping them out)?

Combine all the songs on a given album into a single song.

Here is a response from Garmin. Looks like there will be no update since there is a limit to the hardware.

Thank you for contacting Garmin International.

I would be happy to help you with this matter. Unfortunately, at this time there is not a way to access more than 1000 songs on your MP3 player. We have found, through testing, that if there is a raised limit, that it starts to slow the unit down and that will take away from the ultimate purpose of the GPS itself, which is to provide navigation instruction.
If you have any further questions, please let us know.

That's a novel approach, but I think it would be easier to use two cards. I'm sure there are some on here that will like this idea. I just wouldn't want to be limited to rewind and fast forward to get to a song. I was happy to see the cassette tape go for the same reason.

Thanks, Will

I inserted a Transcend 16Gb Class 6 on my Nuvi 200 and it worked.

The read / write speeds were ridiculous (aprox 700 kb/s), but the gps worked fine...

I don't see the Garmin Nuvi 500/550 listed. I have read that it doesn't have an MP3 player, but perhaps it might be handy to add a micro SD card for other purposes. I wonder if it also has no size limit.

whats up? I just bought my 255w a couple of days ago and updated software and maps and now am in the process of adding some pois. Heres my dilema, firstly, I'm excellent with pcs building and programming so if I'm missing somethinf simple, I'll feel stupid!lol OK, I've tried loading pics directly to the unit and through the pc and card reader and no problems(except I cant find the right resolution pics so that the whole screen covers(maybe its not suppose to anyway?) Well, onward to adding poi files. Again, I tried transferring these little microsoft files to my card connected to the unit and also through the pc and reader and it shows its there but It doesnt show up in extras or my data. The poi loader is suppose to ask you where you want to put data am I correct? How exactly do you add pois or maps to your card? thanks

Welcome to the forum johnnygreek62.

Try 480x272.

Read the FAQ http://www.poi-factory.com/node/85

You may want to check out this site http://snipurl.com/garmin_gps_tricks It contains a ton of useful tips & tricks for the Garmin.

I downloaded poi loader and your link info says download to garmin device but it doesnt specify where. It seems whenever I choose that option it downloads it directly to the garmins storage and not the memory card. I'll check your other link you posted and thanks

This thread was started almost one year ago. I can't seem to find the Garmin FAQ for SD Card Size. I would like to update my Nuvi 200 with more memory to fit one of the newer (bigger) map updates.

Would some please point me to the location of the most recent Garmin FAQ on "SD vs. SDHC", "SD Card Size", and/or "SDHC Class Support" I would like to buy the biggest and fastest SD card that my Nuvi 200 and my pocketbook will support.