USB memory sticks

[lfussell]

Did anyone else receive an email from dynon or Seattle Avionics recommending a high speed memory stick other than the Cruz stick? I cant find e mail but remember that the email said if your were going to download all 50 states data this would be the card of choice and it gave a website to purchase the stick.
Am I just going nuts??
Larry

 

[rvator51]

I only saw the one where they recommended the 32 gig SanDisk Cruzer Fit either online or at Best Buy, etc. 

 

[dynonsupport]

You don't need 32GB, 16GB is plenty, even for all products.

I don't think we mentioned a specific one, but I think there was a mention of "USB3" over "USB2". That's a bit of a marketing flub in all honesty- for small files, the complexity of the controller inside is much more important than the speed of the connection. A cheap USB3 stick will be worse than a good USB2 stick.

If you really want to optimize, I haven't used one of these myself, but they are rated really well for the type of operations we need:

http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Extreme-Flash-Drive-SDCZ80-032G-AFFP/dp/B008AF384W

All that being said, using the Sandisk Cruzr Fit, I can copy Sectionals and IFR LO for WA to a stick in 3 minutes. Given that that is the inital copy, and future updates are only partial copies of what changed, you aren't buying yourself a lot of time with a faster stick, even if you are downloading a lot of states. You really flying to Alaska and Hawaii, or using IFR HI charts?

 

[dynonsupport]

Larry:

Apologies for the lack of info from Tech Support earlier today. Turns out this is mentioned in the SkyView Pilot's User Guide, Rev Q, Page 7-7:

USB memory sticks such as the SanDisk Cruzer Fit series are so short and light that they actually could be mistaken for a USB port "cap". When connected to SkyView's USB harness, rear USB ports, or other panel-mounted ports, they protrude only a few millimeters from the USB port. These are available from retailers such as Amazon for under $15 each: 
http://amzn.com/B005FYNSZA.

Did anyone else receive an email from dynon or Seattle Avionics recommending a high speed memory stick other than the Cruz stick? I cant find e mail but remember that the email said if your were going to download all 50 states data this would be the card of choice and it gave a website to purchase the stick.
Am I just going nuts??
Larry

 

[mmarien]

I like the idea of the SanDisk Cruzer Fit series as the Dynon sticks out enough from the panel to be in danger of getting hit. I've used other inexpensive sticks but they seem awful slow saving screen shots. Are the SanDisk Cruzer Fit stick as fast as the Dynon stick? I think it more memory speed than interface.

 

[dynonsupport]

The SanDisk Fit is what I use in my own plane, and they are plenty quick. For screenshots, the thing they need inside is a buffer, because of the way we write to the USB stick in order to not slow down SkyView during the write. They're average in that reguard.

Also, I just tested a new Data Manager from Seattle Avionics that is about 4 times as fast at copying as the old one. They're making good progress on the download tool and we should be able to release it soon. I just pushed WA, OR, ID, CA, and ID to a cheap, $6 USB stick in 5 minutes.

 

[mmarien]

Thanks. I think I'll give one a try.

 

[GalinHdz]

The SanDisk Fit is what I use in my own plane, and they are plenty quick. For screenshots, the thing they need inside is a buffer, because of the way we write to the USB stick in order to not slow down SkyView during the write. They're average in that regard.

I use the 32 GB Cruzer Fit drive and have had no issues with screenshot speeds while flying.

http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Cruze...35796&sr=1-1&keywords=sandisk+cruzer+fit+32gb

 

[dynonsupport]

The new Seattle Avionics Data Manager is available. The version is 4.1.4.014 as shown in the lower left hand corner of the program. It should auto download and update if you close and re-open the Data Manager. If it does not, it can be manually downloaded here:

http://chartdata.seattleavionics.com/Apps/DataManagerSetup.exe

This should hopefully fix the various problems people have been experiencing over the last two weeks since we released sectionals. It also improves copy speeds to the USB stick by up to 5X.

 

[RVDan]

I thought I'd throw this out there for those who dread the long updates to the memory sticks from the Seattle Avionics download manager. I verified my write speeds for my old USB 2.0 memory sticks and typically see 2-3mb/sec. I got USB 3.0 sticks that have high write speeds and the write rates in the USB 2.0 ports went up to about 4mb/sec. I added USB 3.0 superspeed ports to my computer and stick write speeds now exceed 10mb/sec. Downloaded full set of my selected states for sectionals in only about 10 minutes whereas used to take about 50 minutes to 1 hr.

If you are having downlaod speed issues, might check the write speeds for the sticks you buy and add/upgrade port to USB 3.0 superspeed (about $15). If the sticks don't state a read/write speed it is probably because they are slow. The cheaper ones are slow, even the USB 3.0 ones.