HGST today announced that it is shipping its new Endurastar J4K320 family, a single-platter hard disk drive (HDD) specifically designed for the automotive infotainment and telematics markets. As HGST's sixth generation automotive HDD, the new Endurastar J4K320 family is based on proven technology, provides the industry's highest automotive HDD capacity at 320GB (220% more capacity than its predecessor) and is built to operate in extreme and varying temperatures and altitudes.

The requirements for automotive-class hard drives are quite different from hard drives designed for personal computers or other stationary consumer electronic devices. These drives must go through a stringent qualification process as in-car manufacture installations or after-market solutions can face the most extreme conditions - from high altitudes in the Alps to searing heat in the Sahara Desert. The Endurastar J4K320 operates at altitudes of up to 5500 meters (18,044.62 feet), supports an operating temperature range of -30°C to +85°C (-22°F to 185°F), and has improved operating shock tolerance of 300G (2ms) and a non-operating shock of 800G (ms) for extra reliability and data protection when driving on damaged or unpaved roads.In early 2006, HGST was granted a patent for its Thermal Fly-height Control (TFC) feature, which can compensate the head/media distance variations caused by altitude and temperature changes. In order to provide its customers with the quality level expected in the automotive segment, HGST has designed and tested the Endurastar J4K320 HDD beyond most industry specifications. The Endurastar J4K320 is HGST's second-generation automotive HDD to apply TFC.

"For many years, Mitsubishi Electric has turned to HGST Endurastar automotive hard disk drives to meet the needs of car multimedia systems," said Hiroyuki Morikane, general manager, SANDA WORKS of Mitsubishi Electric Corporation. "From the very first automotive grade models through the current Endurastar J4K100 series, HGST HDDs have met our requirements for excellent performance and high reliability. Mitsubishi Electric looks forward to qualifying HGST's new J4K320 automotive drive as we believe it is the ideal solution for OEM automotive customers who require high capacity and superior quality in a storage device. Backed by HGST's attention to quality, cost, flexible delivery and customer support, we expect the J4K320 to become the next chapter in our long history of a strong business partnership."

"HGST has been working with the automotive industry for nearly two decades to develop the right hard drive products for use in cars," said Brendan Collins, vice president of product marketing, HGST. "These onboard systems integrate a combination of entertainment (video, audio, radio), navigation, connectivity, security services, diagnosis and much more to help provide a seamless in-car user experience. The combination of these services, especially navigation, requires reliable and durable storage for the supporting application software, as well as the needed capacity to store end-user content. As our sixth generation automotive drive, our new Endurastar J4K320 drive family continues to deliver on the needed requirements, and provides long-term data stability and reliability for the automotive market."

The Endurastar J4K320 family comes in 320GB, 250GB, 200GB, 100GB and 80GB capacities, operates at 4260 RPMs and features a SATA interface for easy design configuration flexibility. The drive family is based on a standard 9.5mm 2.5-inch form factor for simple integration into many new and traditional system designs. This allows OEMs and system integrators to take advantage of its ruggedness, huge capacity, low power idle and low-RPM performance to deliver new high-quality, high-capacity, power-efficient systems for the automotive markets.

The HGST Endurastar J4K320 family is currently shipping. For more information, please visit this page.