Hitachi Global Storage Technologies have today launched two new automotive hard drives in Japan. The two new hard drives, called the J4K50 and N4K50, are Hitachi's fourth-generation hard drives geared for portable devices used in cars including Satellite Navigation, In Car Audio/Video Entertainment devices and mobile computing.

The aptly-named 'Endurastar' series of hard drives feature a new wider temperature range, a higher altitude range and the incorporation of shock-absorption technologies so that your electronic device doesn't give up whilst on the move travelling over a pot hole. The drives can survive as much as 3.0G operating vibration and up to an 800G drop shock, which for a 50GB hard drive is a lot of stress.

Although we currently do not know the difference between the two, as they both have a storage capacity of 50GB, both the J4K50 and the N4K50 will be available in the first quarter of 2007.