By 2016, over 55 million people worldwide will have Internet access built in to their vehicles, according to iSuppli Corp. Embedded navigation and entertainment systems are now key differentiators for consumers as smartphones and tablets interact directly with the vehicles systems. Some vehicles now even have the ability to download apps directly, to enhance the in-car experience. With these increasingly sophisticated telematics, navigation and entertainment systems, HDDs must be able to receive growing quantities of data, and Toshiba is working in partnership with manufacturers to make this a reality.
Toshibas premiere automotive HDD, the MKxx60GSC 2.5-inch (6.4cm) series, has been developed to meet this growing demand. Available exclusively from Toshiba, the HDD series has 200GB[1] capacity, making it the largest automotive grade HDD available. The 4,200 RPM drive offers high internal transfer rates up to 665 Mbit/s and an average seek time of 12ms. Drivers can view map updates through sat nav applications, while passengers in the back can stream HD movies and music. Automotive HDDs need to operate in extreme environments, with vast temperature, altitude, and vibration, and still provide a seamless performance. Toshiba HDDs are designed to cope with the most difficult environments providing ruggedized storage for high performance automobiles. Each HDD range is optimised so the disc spindle is able to withstand temperature variations of -30 to +85C. Thanks to aerodynamic technology utilised in the magnetic head slider, it can also withstand altitude of up to 5,650m (higher than any city in the world), and 3G (29.4m/s) vibration tolerance. They also offer silent seek operation so the driver cant hear a sound.
Energy efficiency continues to be a key consideration in the development of automobile. This applies to all components of the vehicle, not just the engine and chassis. Toshiba recognises the importance of low power consumption, and each of its drives use the minimum amount of power, without compromising on performance.
Cars are increasingly forming a key part of our connected ecosystem so its essential they have the capacity to store all the data consumers want and need, said Martin Larsson, Vice President, Toshiba Electronics Europe, Storage Products Division. Toshiba has been a pioneer in the development of automotive storage. We work closely with our customers to ensure our automotive grade HDDs deliver the specifications required by automotive manufactures across the world. As the future of the automotive industry continues its steps towards more integrated driver systems, Toshiba will lead the charge, providing innovative and effective storage solutions.
[1] Definition of Capacity: TOSHIBA defines a megabyte (MB) as 1,000,000bytes, a gigabyte (GB) as 1,000,000,000 bytes, and a terabyte (TB) as 1,000,000,000,000bytes.