Surveillance Storage

Hard Disk for CCTV Surveillance Storage

This is the real challenge. Not an easy job but not so boring, a little bit of mathematics to match the chemistry of your requirements. To be true enough it is not about brands or trade names but it is all how we can reduce the cost to get better results as desired with zero failure rates. Hence the technology matters.

All hard drives are not same but are purposely built. Imagine our laptop, we use like anything but not active in operation for 24 Hours & 7 days a week similar is the story for our desktop. We shut-down devices for sometime at least on our holidays and when we take rest. But we never want to shut-down surveillance recording systems like DVR, NVR or related equipment’s, any way who will shut-down the security system.

Lets us have little comparison assuming average Hard Disks. The Desktop HDD Spin at 5400~10000 RPM with average media transfer rate of 0.5 Gbit/s compared to Laptop HDD Spin at 4200~5400 RPM with average media transfer rate of 0.625 MB/sec. The HDD drive used to store videos & other graphics continuously without shut-down even for fraction of second need to be robust in construction to overcome any ambient changes & shocks, technically stable & efficient.

The surveillance hard disks must and should store high quality images & videos for all the active video inputs to the device like DVR or NVR etc and the access to the stored data should be fast. The factors to be considered before selecting the hard disk for video surveillance storage devices can be briefly expressed as below

Storage Capacity

Yes it is the major factor; a huge hard disk for one CCTV camera is wastage of money while as choosing hard disk randomly is not wise. A bit calculation is needed. But honestly all the calculations for choosing the size of HDD required for any surveillance system is an approximate not accurate. As no formula can help us to get exact capacity requirements but again approximate. The factors that decide the approximate size of HDD needed are many not few. Number of cameras & camera type (IP or else), Resolution, Number of days for data retention, Number of hours every day (including motion, alarm, continuous, frames, codec etc). The storage space needed by one camera is calculated using the following formula (Approximate not exact)

A = Horizontal resolution (pixels) * Vertical Resolution (Pixels)

B = Frame rate (FPS) * Average video compression rate * Storage time (Number of Days)

C = Constant factor

N= Number of Cameras

T= Total Storage Space Needed

Storage space needed in Gigabytes (G)= (A * B)/ C where C = 8.64/ 10, 00,000

Total Hard Disk required for complete project (T) = N * G

Power Consumption

It matters a lot. Imagine 112 Camera project & 16 Channel NVR’s means we need 7 NVR’s, again if each NVR is equipped with 5 HDD each, just feel the heat generated by such a system. Thus power consumption and cooling system is the point of concern, so need to choose the hard drives wisely not randomly otherwise expensive cooling system will cost a lot and excessive heat deteriorates the performance of device & may result in shut-down & restart that will cause loss in video storage.

Shock proof

Really it should be. The vibration & shocks lead to loss of video information hence the desired results are not achieved. Most of Hard Drives have patented anti-vibration technology that helps for the stability of the device against any vibration.

Summarizing everything, we need to concentrate on Hard Disk drives used for Surveillance Storage with

Temperature Compensation

Anti Vibration technology

Designed for surveillance application

That supports multiple Hard Drives in single unit

Simply before choosing the hard drive for any surveillance project, we have to compare datasheets seriously & not to ignore even a single factor.

A bad Hard Disk means failure.

For product & projects inquiry , as well regarding the Choosing Hard Disk for CCTV video surveillance, CCTV Cameras , Security systems & solutions, please do not hesitate in sending the inquiries to CCTV Institute at info@cctvinstitute.co.uk