Toshiba Revs Up New 200GB HDDs for Cars

Toshiba's Storage Device Division on April 15 launched a new 200GB, single-platter hard drive designed for navigation and entertainment deployments in the automotive market.

Following a bit of research on other drives in this class, eWEEK confirmed Toshiba's claim that the 2.5-inch, 4,200 rpm SATA (Serial ATA) MK2060GSC drive is the highest-capacity automotive-grade hard disk drive now available, more than doubling the storage space of other currently available drives.

Most drives today are 80GB; two years ago, 30GB drives were considered top of the line.

Toshiba said the new drive boasts a 78 percent improvement in internal transfer rates over its own previous models and a faster seek time of 12 milliseconds.

Automotive-grade HDDs are custom-designed to endure all conditions in which vehicles operate, including extreme cold and heat.

The machinery in the disks and their protective casings are hardened so as to withstand difficult road conditions and temperature ranges from -30 degrees C to +85 degrees C, as well as high altitudes, Toshiba said.

Toshiba claimed about 75 percent of the 2009 market in this sector, according to the company's internal data. Analysts do not break out market information on automotive-sector HDDs.

As of March 2010, Toshiba said it has shipped 14 million automotive-grade HDDs worldwide.