NewEgg

I also remember about a year ago, maybe longer, on one of the photo forums there was a discussion on microdrive failures and the general concenseous was that it would be better reliability to switch to flash cards and suffer the loss of storage.  Flash cards then were much more expensive and I don't recall any with more than 256MB being available.  These were digital cameras the storage was being used in. 

Ned said:

Most hard drives don't die, they're killed, usually by insufficient cooling.

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Either way, the result is the same. Since this discussion of HDs started when discussing GPS units, I can definitely say that I don't take steps to ensure that my GPS is kept cool. On the contrary, it usually sits on the dash in direct sunlight. If I stop and leave the car, I don't always turn off the GPS or move it from the dash. In any event, the temperature inside the car rises considerably in the typical California sun. I doubt very much that any MTBF claims are made  under those "real usage" conditions.

Last night I looked briefly at the specs of a couple of HDs from a large manufacturer. No claims of a specific MTBF, just "our product is reliable", which is, at best, marketing hype. I'm still curious to read the source for the 100K number.

FWIW the temperature-related discussion above and in my earlier message would apply equally to Flash products. My issue with a HD is that it's more likely to be damaged by physical abuse than solid state memory.

Good Lord what kind of a debate did I start here? ? ;D

Ron:

Here is my concern. ?The 2610 only comes stock with a 128 meg card. ?Is that enough to get all the maps installed? ?I want to be able to calculate routes anywhere in the USA without having to upload and overwrite map data. ?I want it all right there, so I can be anywhere, and still calculate routing from anywhere to anywhere.

The 2620 has 500 megs of blank disk, 4 times what is on the flash card. ?That is blank disk not counting the rest of the disk occupied by the maps. Did you buy a bigger flash card and if so for how much and for what size?

Tom said:

Last night I looked briefly at the specs of a couple of HDs from a large manufacturer. No claims of a specific MTBF, just "our product is reliable", which is, at best, marketing hype. I'm still curious to read the source for the 100K number.

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It seems that my data is out of date.  See http://faq.storagereview.com/tiki-index.php?page=MTBF for a discussion of MTBF and see that the numbers are now 1.2 Million hours for SCSI drives and the last paragraph reads:

"MTBF should be regarded as a minimum statement of reliability by the manufacturer. These days, no manufacturer will spec an enterprise-class drive below 1.2 million hours. Likewise, no firm will bother with MTBF less than 400,000 for a desktop-class disk. It is this consistency, rather than the spec's lack of meaning, that allows one to gloss over these claims."

The MTBF values are now so high (and drives so reliable) that the numbers aren't of any real value.  The drives, if not abused, will outlive all of us.

For a typical Seagate drive see http://www.seagate.com/cda/newsinfo/newsroom/releases/article/0,1121,2000,00.html.

For a large list of currently available drive with MTBF listed for many see http://www.aberdeeninc.com/abcatg/hdisk.htm.

All of this was found with Google searches on MTBF, MTBF Seagate, and MTBF Maxtor.

Want more?

Ned:

Very interesting.

What about the kind of micro drive in a GPS and also how would the hot conditions Tom describes affect the ratings?

Smoky said:

Good Lord what kind of a debate did I start here?  ;D

Ron:

Here is my concern.  The 2610 only comes stock with a 128 meg card.  Is that enough to get all the maps installed?  I want to be able to calculate routes anywhere in the USA without having to upload and overwrite map data.  I want it all right there, so I can be anywhere, and still calculate routing from anywhere to anywhere.

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Smoky

No, the 128 card is not large enough to get all the maps installed, neither is the 1 GB card. However, stop and listen for a minute. You do not do the route calculating on the GPS with the 2610. The 2610 loads the full mapset on your computer and you can plan routes on the computer to your heart's content. When you use the 2610, it knows where you are and plans your route to where you tell it you want to go via the via points you want on the way. At that point, you should have done all your "planning' already. I do not upload any routes to the 2610 at any time. I have a couple of smaller cards with specialized mapsets on them but I haven't had to redo the 1GB card since last June when we had spent 2 months east of the Mississippi.

The 2620 has 500 megs of blank disk, 4 times what is on the flash card.  That is blank disk not counting the rest of the disk occupied by the maps. Did you buy a bigger flash card and if so for how much and for what size?

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Fry's Electronics frequently has a 1GB card on sale for $50-60 after rebate, I have 2 plus assorted 128 and 256 sizes. Luckily, my camera uses the same cards so I can interchange as needed.

Smoky said:

What about the kind of micro drive in a GPS and also how would the hot conditions Tom describes affect the ratings?

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I would expect those conditions to shorten the life somewhat, so the drive may only outlive me by a few years instead of 100 or so.? The drive is also easily replaceable as it's a standard 1.8" (or is 2.5"?) drive.

Smoky,

True the 2610 comes with a 128mb flash card.  However in my case I purchased a 1 GB card for about 40-50 bucks on sale at Fry's.  I find the 1 GB card holds all the maps I normally use during our travels this includes mapsource 4.01 and Topo maps for areas we off road in. I do include routing when I upload maps because I don't plan trips on the computer.  I like to be ready to change direction if we decide to while driving.  When we went through Jerry's personal Fry's store in LV I noticed they had 2 GB cards for about the same price as I paid for my 1 BG a year earlier.  With two GB you could probably load the whole country with all three maps with routing.

Well dunno.  I played with the 2620 for 2 days after "borrowing it" from Best Buy.  I had no trouble doing routes right on it.  In fact I enjoyed comparing what it came up with vs DeLorme. 

Then (as Bernie described) I added vias to get it to match DeLorme.  All through the process I kept joyfully thanking myself I did not have to upload any map data, no matter what origins and destinations I selected.  I think Street Atlas has spoiled me that way.    Maybe after I have fulltimed for a few years I will settle down to some favorite areas that will fit on a card.  But right now everything is shiny and new to me and I just love plotting routes every time one of you mentions a new place.  This morning I have been plotting routes to Peg Leg for example. 

For now, I think hard drive is best for me.  In a few years I might switch over to a new GPS with flash memory.  I had my fill of flash memory though a few years ago both with land based and nautical GPSes.  I found them a PITA.

I will say, whether a 2610 or 2620, that GPS design is fabulous.  My current plan is to use Delorme on my laptop for route planning only.  Then put away the laptop when we fire up the pusher, and do all live navigating by Garmin.  It takes up so little room and I won't have to install a mount for a laptop. 

I especially love the way it keeps recalculating routes automatically when I deviate from the original route.  I found I did not miss voice command at all.  I think that is because the interface is so well designed, you seldom have to tell it to do anything at all.  It gets me back on track without my command,  it zooms in right when it makes sense.  And if I set the tabs right, I always have next turn info and ETA and things like that whenever I need them.  And if I simply have to tell it something, in one day I already learned to use the remote control "by feel". 

And the GPS voice is excellent. I think it is cool how they integrated the speaker to the cigarette lighter adapter.

BTW has anyone figured out a way to get audio output from the Garmin fed to another device?  Not sure it is necessary as the speaker is plenty loud, but just curious in case background noise gets very high.  I like to play music while I a running down the road and it might be cool to feed the Garmin audio into my entertainment center.

This must be about the best automotive GPS on the market.

LOL Ned, all I needed was the source for your 100K hours. I'll analyze your new referenced data later, but experience reported here on the forum in the last couple of days doesn't support 1.2M hours. I'll give you a lesson in reliability calculations and the myths of statistics in Moab if you'd like  ;D

Smoky said:

what kind of a debate did I start here?

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LOL Smoky, you're pretty good at getting such debates going. If we have a quiet time, I'll just drop you a note asking you to post a question.

Being a math major, I'm quite familiar with statistics and how they can be (mis)used   I believe one of the references I gave discussed the methodology used in the MTBF calculations.

Smoky said:

I think it is cool how they integrated the speaker to the cigarette lighter adapter. BTW has anyone figured out a way to get audio output from the Garmin fed to another device?

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Different strokes I guess Smoky. I find the speaker in the lighter adapter to be a PITA. It takes up too much room and runs interference with things I try to plug into adjacent adapters. Like you, I thought of interfacing the GPS audio with the audio equipment on the vehicle. That would also allow me to replace the bulky thing that plugs into the 12V adapter. I rarely use the voice commands, but the driver likes to hear them.

It's been a while since I looked at the 26xx series, but the audio output on the SPIII is via a separate plug, although the audio wires disappear into the same cable loom as the power wires.

Ned said:

I believe one of the references I gave discussed the methodology used in the MTBF calculations.

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I'd be interested in reading that, having spent part of my career of running accelerated tests, analyzing the results, running the calculations every which way, and publishing/presenting the data in a way that makes the customer happy. The one sure thing I used to teach students about reliability is that you can't verify the result until the patient is dead; Everything else is either theory or a calculation.

Also spent many hours rumaging around the floor of numerous disk drive manufacturers looking for the stuff they threw away, so I could perform autopsies. The large drive manufacturers take reliability very seriously, thanks in large part to pressures from their customers.  When dealing with a HD failure, I could usually tell who the OEM of the PC was from the tone of the conversation. Many of those OEMs were also my direct customers, so I knew how their conversations with the drive guys went.

I will be UPGRADING from SA9 to Streets and Trips.

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I did that recently Ron but, so far, I'm not overly impressed with S&Ts routing tools. OTOH that might just be part of the learning curve, and I don't do user manuals

BTW I inadvertently screwed up your message, so I deleted it. Apologies.

Smoky said:

Then (as Bernie described) I added vias to get it to match DeLorme.  All through the process I kept joyfully thanking myself I did not have to upload any map data, no matter what origins and destinations I selected.

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Smoky, I don't know why you are fixated on uploading. Unless you are plotting a coast to coast trip, the 1GB card will contain as much map as you will usually need.

BTW has anyone figured out a way to get audio output from the Garmin fed to another device?  Not sure it is necessary as the speaker is plenty loud, but just curious in case background noise gets very high.  I like to play music while I a running down the road and it might be cool to feed the Garmin audio into my entertainment center.

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The SPIII had a separate plug for the speaker module and you could plug a remote speaker into it. Garmin did away with it on the 26xx and you no longer have that capability.

Smoky,

No experience with newegg.

If you are not already aware of it: http://gpsinformation.net/ has more than you ever even thought about wanting to know about GPS.  They have a list of recommended vendors: http://gpsinformation.us/main/vendors.htm

I bought from one of their recommended vendors http://www.gpsdiscount.com/home.html and was happy.

With regard to map set size:  I've been plotting a trip from Ga to Yellowstone & Glacier.  The most recent mapsource has a "select maps along routes".  The detail maps are 214M for that trip.

The base map is good for point to point.  You need(?) the detail maps for street level detail and finding the closest grocery store.

Read the review: http://gpsinformation.us/sp26xx/sp2610rev.html