2610 CF card question

[Lone_RT_rider]

I know that the 2610 will take a 2 GB card, but will it take a 4 GB card?

 

 

Shawn

[smiller]

Shawn,

 

I'm not sure whether a 4gb card will work, but if you are planning on using 4gb for maps be advised that memory capacity is not the only limiting factor... there is also a limit of the maximum number of map segments (somewhere around 2024 I believe) that Mapspource can process. So even if you have room to hold multiple map databases (say CN, Topo, R&R, etc.) you'll find that you cannot load them all even if you do have enough space on the card. Thus 2gb is the largest practical size regardless of whether the unit will work with a 4gb card or not.

 

If the reason you want to use the 4gb card has nothing to do with loading multoiple map databases then... nevermind.

[Lone_RT_rider]

You nailed the reasoning behind my question. I will spend the 40 dolllars for the 2 GB card and call it good. Right now I have the 1 GB and want to be able to put the entire US on the card and be done with it. Thanks for the info!

 

Shawn

[David]

You can load all the US/Canada AND you can load one-third of the US topo maps on a 2GB card. That's how I use my space.

[smiller]

You can load all the US/Canada AND you can load one-third of the US topo maps on a 2GB card.

That's a good strategy. You can load a good number of Topo maps in addition to CN because the CN maps are relatively large in size and small in number. Where you run into trouble is with lots of the smaller Topo maps or R&R which is segregated down to the county level. In those cases the physical number of maps is large even though the individual maps themselves may be small, and that's where you can quickly bump into the map number limit.

[David]

And 1/3 of the topo maps is typically enough, since I'm not riding a "topo-map" type of bike further than that.

[DavidEBSmith]

You already came to the right decision, but for others reading this - there's also a potential issue with the CF card formatting of a 4 GB card. With a 4GB card, you need to format it as FAT32, but it's not clear from what I can Google if the Garmin hardware supports FAT32. So to be safe, stick with a 2 GB card.

 

BTW, the 26xx undocumented tips and tricks page suggests that you get faster calculations and redraws with faster CF cards, contrary to what was previously believed. But is the speed increase worth the extra cost?