Toshiba's latest HDDs are automotive-grade, dashboard-bound
By Tim Stevens 
posted April 15th 2010 9:37AM
posted April 15th 2010 9:37AM
We'd like to think that platters are a dying breed; that SSD-based mass storage will rule all our computing devices thanks to its increased durability, performance, and efficiency. Some folks are just stuck on platters, though, including Toshiba, which is introducing a new line of disks intended for in-car infotainment systems. The two current models come in 100 or 200GB capacities and, while they won't win any awards for their 4,200RPM rotational speeds, they will operate at a temperature range of -30 to 85 degrees celsius (that's -22 to 185F) while offering vibration resistance of up to 2Gs and operational shock survivability of up to 300Gs. If you can avoid firing your minivan out of a gauss rifle in Minnesota in February this could be the drive for you.
I think we would rather prefer SSDs to be more safe...plus if you have a fast car you just have to have a faster drive right..
Sorry, I DO plan on firing my minivan out of a gauss rifle in Minnesota in February, and if there isn't a hard drive that works after that, SO HELP ME GOD
@AckbarsFist
So much for installing it in my warthog
looks like these hard disks...
*puts on sunglasses*
...are going for a drive
YEAHHHHHHHHH
@skyblaze
teehee +1
Um, keep trying Toshiba. I live in Minnesota and while we NEVER hit 185F, we occasionally DO drop below -22F in February! And December. And January...
@nbb350
It probably just won't kick on until it reaches that temp - 3 minutes or so near an internal combustion engine and you should have at least - 22 internal HD temp
So, I'm hoping that "will operate in temps" doesn't mean it'll bork the entire car if temps fall below -22. Honestly, that's not an incredibly uncommon occurrence up north; even in southern Wisconsin we get that a couple times a winter.
@Dyslexda the question is, does it get that cold? The temperature outside doesn't mean it gets that cold in the car too... Depends where this thing is mounted, too.
Seems like a waste of time + effort.
SSDs don't get hot and they have no moving parts - so "temperature" and "vibration" don't matter to an SSD, right?
If your car revs faster then your hard drive, you may have a problem.
@sethmo
Don't all cars rev faster than HDs?
@Gas 90% of cars rev over 6000rpm, therefore we have a problem. Need more RPMs!
@Gas unless they are a diesel, some would have trouble reaching even 4200. Now let's see your daily driver rev faster than a cheetah?
@sethmo *can* rev
I swear I hardly go over 3k rpm.
@KAL326
Um, diesel engines typically rev much LOWER, so they would be the ones having trouble reaching 4200 RPM while gasoline engines could reach it fairly easily.
@KAL326
Never mind, I see your meaning. I was thrown off by the comma that should've been a period or semi-colon.
So it gets to -40 here in Canuck Chuck (or colder sometimes) so does that mean my new in-dash MP3 player system will simply refuse to play? Apparently so...so then on that accord, I'd rather go with an SSD. I'd have to say that this technology is apparently still born...next!
Aww. But firing my minivan out o a gaus rifle is my entire winters fun. Killjoy. =[
WOOT WOOT! Rep Minnesota Winters!
I have an '09 Dodge Challenger SRT-8 and it has the MyGig Touchscreen Nav/Radio with a 30 Gig HD. I was hoping it was a SSD, but it's not. I can even rip tunes from the DVD/CD drive right to the HD. It also has a USB port to view/import pics and music.
@RobHoliday
srt, huh? That's cute, is that your wife's car?
@hikeskool:
At least it's not a Neon SRT-4.
@michaspi
Actually, although not my thing AT ALL, the neon can be tuned to be very fast. Again, not my thing, but yeah I agree the srt-8 in its current implentations is kind of a joke.
I hope the car doesn't shut off when Toshiba's crappy drive dies.
I'm all for SSD's, when ever they start approaching the $.25 per GB mark. HDD tech is still plenty robust enough for peoples needs. Not to mention size: I have over 5TB in my system, do you know how much that would cost me in SSD? We're talk'n Heidi Fleiss rates.
Or you could just get a cheap value series SSD (I recommend Kingston) and not deal with the slow speeds and shitty access times.
"automotive-grade"....hmmm, I hope the accelerator sticks =D
I've got an '89 E30 lowered, with quite tough suspension. I've build a car pc for it that is mounted inside the glove-box compartment. It's running just a regular (3.5inch) 500GB Seagate SATA 7200RPM drive. It's been running for 2.5 years with no problems at all, considering all the shocks and stress of the road. Several weeks ago ran SMART diagnostic on it and it is still at 95% health, so i don't really see a reason of going to the slower drive with that kind of shock rating, unless you are sending it on Mars or something...
I believe you mean -30 degrees C unless you mean that the drive will fail at room temperature.
@Skornogr4phy
The negative sign is at the end of the preceding sentence