Hard driving hard drives

By: Drivers.com staff
Date: 2006-01-07

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In the fall of 2005 some Japanese car models came off assembly lines with a new breed of electronic storage devices that are likely to propel the next generation of automobiles into a new age of mobile connectivity and 'infotainment' capability.

The new devices are hard disk drives (HDD) with storage capacity of 30 gigabytes and more, and capable of withstanding extremes of temperature and vibration that home computers never have to deal with.

Mapping and navigation programs require upwards of 15 GigaBytes (GB) of storage to operate comfortably. Add music and video storage and 30 - 40 GB becomes a new minimum standard.

With this kind of storage capability you've got a car with the capacity for sophisticated navigation and mapping along with advanced music and video storage for thousands of songs or a dozen or so movies. Add mobile high speed internet and you've got a superconnected vehicle that will make auto purchasers of the future forget about horsepower, or at least downgrade it in importance.

The new drives use an advanced method of storage called Perpendicular Magnetic Recording. PMR has the potential to increase storage by 10 times current levels. This is particularly important in automobiles where HDD makers have to decrease recording density in order to accommodate extremes of temperature.

In the United States and Europe, the first wave of vehicles which with manufacturer-installed HDD systems are scheduled to be shipped in model year 2007.

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