The advantage of video surveillance dedicated HDD for DVR

From incomplete statistics, the 60% of problems for standalone DVR are derived from the hard driver (HDD). With the new technology development, video data storage are increasing with geometric growth speed, it’s very tricky, once hard driver with problem and lost data. When these problems happen, security installer need to offer free door to door maintenance service for customers, this will not only increase the business cost, but also damage the reputation.

What’s the video surveillance dedicated hard driver (HDD) ?

In order to solve the problem which is caused by the hard driver, the standard alone DVR should install video surveillance dedicated hard driver for video storage. The video surveillance dedicated hard drivers are with same appearance as normal PC hard driver, but with different technical parameters. Utilizing the video surveillance dedicated hard driver (HDD) can keep video surveillance system continuously working without HDD error and decrease the data lost risk. Example: Seagate SV35 is industry standard hard driver for video surveillance system. Seagate Barracuda series are for desktop computer. 

The difference between surveillance dedicated hard driver and traditional PC hard driver.

1. Difference on continuous working time

The continuous working time for traditional PC HDD is based on 5 x 8 ; 5 x 8 means HDD continuous working on 8 hours per day, and 5 days per week (HDD working means HDD in reading and writing status). Please note after power up HDD, there are two status: working status and suspend status, working status means HDD is reading/writing data, suspend status means HDD is not reading or writing, in ready status.

The video surveillance dedicated hard driver (e.g: SV35) is based on 7 x 24 continuous working, it’s industry grade design. 7x24 means every day working 24 hours and seven days per week (ie continuous work).

Traditional (ordinary) PC hard drive is not suitable for long time reading and writing, PC hard driver continuous working for a long time to read and write data will make noise, and cause read/write data errors, interruption…etc many problems, and eventually cause data lost. 

Standalone digital video recorder (SDVR) need continuous run, thus requiring video storage HDD must can be in long time continuous working, video surveillance dedicated HDD can meet this requirement.

2. Power management (Start up current is different)

All 3.5 inch HDDs contain two motor system (spindle motor and actuator arm motor), thus when power up the HDD, the HDD will need large current in initializing stage to complete HDD start up. If the power supply can not provide efficient current, the HDD can not start up successfully, lead to HDD can not use. More over, too much start up failure likely to cause damage to the HDD.

With reason of HDD get the DC12V power supply from external power, thus external power supply DC12V is the standard for measurement of HDD start-up current. Traditional PC HDD start up current is among 2.8A – 3.2A. Video surveillance dedicated HDD start-up current is 2.0A.

Typically standalone digital video recorder adopts multi-HDD for video storage, installing 8 units HDD as an example: Traditional PC HDD start up current is 2.8 x 9 = 22.4A, the lowest power consumption is 22.4A X 12V = 268.8W. The video surveillance dedicated HDD start up current is 2.0A X 8 = 16A, the highest power consumption is 16A x 12V=192W. From above data, with same quantity of HDD, video surveillance dedicated HDD with low current requirement (With same external power supply, the digital video recorder can install more video storage dedicated HDDs).

Currently, based on the reliability of video surveillance systems from highest to lowest, the video surveillance systems can divide into the following levels:

• Residential class reliability: Low reliable, low cost design level, to meet daily consumption needs, usually system is designed for meeting the basic 5x8 hours continuous working reliability. The system running in normal 8 hours daily, may experience frequent downtime, reset, recording interruption…etc errors.
• Commercial-grade reliability: Medium, medium-cost design level, the system can meet long time continuous working reliable operation requirements, but system may also experience downtime, reset phenomenon.
• Carrier-class reliability: The system with 7x24 hours continuous working design, high reliability, and very rare rate on downtime, reset errors.