As Gran Turismo 5 speeds closer to release this November, word is that it will support an optional hard drive installation if you don’t want to wait for the disc load times. The game reportedly runs much faster and much smoother after a hard drive installation, which comes as no surprise.

The optional hard drive installation takes 10GB of hard drive space. This is really no surprise, considering the amount of content that comes with GT5. (The Xbox 360 release of Forza 3 with all of the add-on packs tips in at just about the same amount for a hard drive install, as well.)

In a comment on Twitter about the hard drive installation, Kazunori Yamauchi, CEO of developer Polyphony Digital (the developer of GT5), suggests that if you want a “smooth” experience you can install the game to the hard drive. No one seems to know what a “smooth” experience is and how long the wait times might be for the game to be played from the disc only using 256MB of hard drive space.

10GB, of course, is a lot of hard drive space, but we suspect serious Gran Turismo fans will find a way to clear enough space on their hard drives to install it. The good news is that players are being given some advance warning so that they can start making room now.