Sd Card - what size, what transfer speed

I bought the Nuvi 350 recently, and got a 2 gb card for it. I stored a bunch of MP3 files on it, which I've never messed around with before. I'm amazed at how fast it chewed up memory. About 8 hours of songs used up 1 gb. The POI's, at least the ones I've uploaded to the nuvi so far, in contrast have used minimal amounts of memory. e.g. The DC metro file I created is only 10kb.

My advice: buy 2 gigs and be done with it. They're not that much money. I don't think all the fancy shmancy 'ultra 2, super secure, super fast' silliness is needed. Mine works fine in loading POI's, playing songs, etc.

GC

With a GPS like nuvi, data is more often being read from the card rather than being written to the card. Writing happens when you load music or POIs from your computer.

I don't know how significant SD memory speed is for nuvi, but I would focus on the read speed more than the write speed.

For what it's worth, I have a standard speed 2GB card that I use with a TomTom GO 510, and it works just fine.

JM

I am looking to store some songs. I have a small collection. I am really interested in the POI's. I am also interested in the tours that can be loaded. After the holidays I plan to put some serious time into learning how to create POI's. Based on what I have been reading it seems very doable. I will take your advice on the 2 gigs. thanks

Thanks I will go with the standard. That should save some money. I went up to Garmin. Garmin recommends the Sandisk and Kingston. They had some compatibility issues with the SanDisk Ultra II 1 Gb cards with "x" series Garmin GPS. They were ok with other company's SD cards but they did not list them. They had only tested Sandisk and Kingston.

Radio Shack has a sale for 2GB SDs for 39 bucks and I found this 4GB one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E168201830...

at 50 bucks - which is 9 bucks cheaper than yesterday when I checked on nexttag.com... prices are plumetting...

I also like the mp3 option on the road... I do a text-to-speech of alotta papers and mags for the commute and biz travel... they chew the mem...

Paul

I thought it might be worthwhile if we asked Garmin about the speed of SD cards. So I sent them this email.

I have the garmin 660. Just bought it. I am going to buy an SD card 2 or 4 gig. Is there any speed enhancement if I buy the faster SD card or will the standard give the same read transfer? Basicly will the Garmin 660 benefit from the faster SD card?

Garmin's reply.

"Hello,

Thank you for contacting Garmin International. I will be more than happy to help you with this. Our units do not benefit from faster speed data cards.
I would recommend to save some money and purchase the standard card.

Should you have further questions please contact Garmin Product Support by replying to this email or contact our Consumer Support Line at 800-800-1020 Monday-Friday 8am-5pm CST."

They responded in 2 hours. I was impressed with the quick turn around from Garmin during the holidays.

The experience of the user replies from this forum were accurate. I went and purchased on 12/22/06 the Sandisk SD 2 gig card for $39 with a mail in coupon for $5 at circuit city.

Thanks for the help everyone.

Good to have the information straight from the Garmin Folks.

Get the 4 gig size. I'm using the 2 gig card and the whole map of Metroguide Europe don't fit on it. It fits fine on my friends 4 gig card since the map size is 2.1 gigs.