Built in memory on Garmin Etrex 20 and 20x

[fhills]

My Etrex 20 has quite a lot of waypoints installed on it.

They are on the integral storage.

It's at 75 per cent capacity on waypoints apparently or so it telle me when I go the screen which lets you clear/reset stuff.


I recently  acquired an Etrex 20x which has twice as much built in storage and copied all my waypoints over.

And it's still showing 75 per cent!

What's all this about?

Has Garmin formatted the internal storage in some way that limits the space available for waypoints/POIs?

If so what is the boosted storage for?

As it seems to me to be best practice to put your maps on the card - (and card storage is cheap these days) - as it avoids booting complications and possibly screwing up the operating system.

A related question.

I know that waypoints saved on the unit go onto the internal storage.

Is it possible to also have waypoints on the card and have the unit see both sets as one?

edited - mindslip - the new unit is of course a 20X - with boosted onboard storage.

[Kim]

I expect the limitation isn't storage related, but pertains to the number of waypoints it can hold in memory at the same time.

And yes, it should pull in waypoints/tracks/routes from GPX files on the SD card.  I think you need to put them in a Garmin/GPX/ directory.

[vorsprung]

if you google this you get a 7 year old thread from yacf

https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=65673.0

[fhills]

In do have a habit of finding my own posts when googling for a solution to something.

So the limits is 2000 waypoints whether a 20 or 20x?

Despite the storage difference?

[frankly frankie]

Your 20x probably has a pre-installed map (Garmin Topoactive) taking up quite a lot of that memory, your older 20 probably doesn't.

Yes you can put Waypoints on the card (in a GPX file) and they will be seen.  If they are on or close to a Track contained in a different GPX file (stored either on the card or in memory) then the GPS can report them as up-coming 'next' points as you navigate the Track - just as though they were both in a single GPX file.

I'm not sure what happens if identical GPX files are placed on both the card and the internal memory though - not something I've ever been stupid curious enough to try.

2000 Waypoints is a awful lot - given that earlier Etrexes were limited to 500 and that proved to be no limitation at all.  (Both Tracks and Routes can be constructed without using any Waypoints at all.)

[fhills]

Your 20x probably has a pre-installed map (Garmin Topoactive) taking up quite a lot of that memory, your older 20 probably doesn't.

It's not that Frankie. For although it did have that on I took it off.

Unless it is still lurking there in some sort of bin.

By the by, will start another thread on that.

[fuaran]

So the limits is 2000 waypoints whether a 20 or 20x?

Despite the storage difference?

Probably, yes.
How many waypoints have you loaded?

If you want lots of points, maybe better loading them as a POI file. They don't have the same limits as waypoints. Not sure if there is any limit on number of POI.

[fhills]

So the limits is 2000 waypoints whether a 20 or 20x?

Despite the storage difference?

Probably, yes.
How many waypoints have you loaded?

If you want lots of points, maybe better loading them as a POI file. They don't have the same limits as waypoints. Not sure if there is any limit on number of POI.

Thanks for the tip - yes POIs do seem very compact - for have loaded a ton of archies campsites. And spoons.