Toshiba Intros Storage for Cars

IRVINE, Calif. -- Toshiba Storage Device Division (SDD), the industry pioneer in small form factor hard disk drives (HDDs), today introduced its first 80GB Serial-ATA (SATA) automotive-grade HDD, expanding its line of ruggedized and temperature-enhanced storage solutions for in-car navigation and infotainment applications.

The seventh-generation, automotive-grade HDD (model MK8057GSC) is Toshiba's first to offer a SATA interface, complementing the company's existing line of Parallel-ATA (PATA) products in 40GB, 60GB and 80GB capacities. Migration to the SATA interface enables automotive in-dash system designers to easily integrate with the latest automotive chip-set technologies. The SATA storage interface allows automotive systems designers to reduce signal-line complexity, while supporting faster top-end data transfer rates versus Parallel-ATA (PATA) based HDDs.

Toshiba also celebrates a key milestone of shipping more than nine million automotive-grade HDDs, highlighting the strong demand and accelerated adoption of disk-based storage solutions by the automotive industry worldwide. The company commands an 84 percent market share(2) in the automotive HDD segment, according to research firm Techno Systems Research (TSR) Co., Ltd.

"Toshiba has been a pioneer in the automotive-grade HDD market since developing the first ruggedized 2.5-inch HDD able to withstand extreme operating temperatures and altitudes of the automotive environment," said Toshio Magome, senior director at Techno Systems Research Co., Ltd. "The introduction of SATA will play a pivotal role in delivering next-generation automotive infotainment applications and sophisticated navigation systems."

Toshiba Corp.