lenny1954

Are microdrives fast enough for gps software?

Should I use a CF card? 80x,120x or 133x?

Thanks!

brobinson

A microdrive is certainly fast enough for the map data, since that would be loaded into memory when in use. The software may run slower from the microdrive, but you can always try it and then reinstall into main memory if it is slow.

JakeRich

Originally Posted by brobinson

A microdrive is certainly fast enough for the map data, since that would be loaded into memory when in use. The software may run slower from the microdrive, but you can always try it and then reinstall into main memory if it is slow.

Umm, not quite. Maps are usually very large, larger than you can hold in RAM. So the application is constantly going back for more data about the map as it needs it. Using a microdrive is going to slow down that access, making the application appear to run more slowly than it would if you used a big storage card. On the other hand, the application is typically loaded into RAM to run, then not accessed again (except for the .dlls, maybe) from the storage area. Experiences vary, based on the microdrive, but most folks find them too slow for mapping applications.

dr_rick

I think to some extent, it may depend on the program you are running as well, but I'm not completely sure of the way that the maps are handled by the program. I run iGuidance and have a 6 GB MD with the entire US loaded on it. To me, it seems to run fine, I don't feel like it is too slow for what I need. To be honest though, I haven't tried running the program from a faster storage device, such as an SD or regular CF card, so I can't really compare. The only thing that I can imagine is greatly affected by the use of the MD is recalculating routes. It is, at times, somewhat slow. I wouldn't say that it is unbearably slow, because iGuidance does usually have a new route in plenty of time for my next turn, but I could see a longer route being slowed considerably by the slow access rate of the MD--but again, I haven't actually tried this. All I can say is that if it is in fact slower, it doesn't really bother me on a WM2003SE X50v with iGuidance. Hope that helps!