Quick Answer
Yes, you can use a regular hard drive for surveillance storage, but it may not be the most reliable or optimal solution compared to purpose-built surveillance drives. Regular drives are designed for general computing and lack some key features of surveillance drives like extended temperature ranges, vibration tolerance, and specialized firmware. However, regular drives can work if optimized properly through cooling, anti-vibration mounts, limiting locations, and configuring for constant writing.
What Are the Differences Between Regular and Surveillance Hard Drives?
While regular desktop hard drives and surveillance drives look similar physically, there are some key differences under the hood that make surveillance drives more suited for continuous video recording in security systems:
Temperature Range
Surveillance drives are built to withstand a wider temperature range, often from 0°C to 70°C compared to 5°C to 60°C for regular drives. The extended range helps them operate reliably in hot equipment rooms or outdoor enclosures.
Vibration Tolerance
Being designed for 24/7 operation in RAID arrays, surveillance drives have enhanced vibration tolerance. This protects them from performance degradation or damage from vibration in equipment racks and enclosures.
Workload Rating
Surveillance drives are typically rated for 180 TB/year workloads or higher compared to only 55 TB/year for desktop drives. This matches their continuous writing workload in streaming multiple video feeds simultaneously.
Specialized Firmware
The firmware in surveillance drives is optimized for multiple simultaneous write streams and reporting back drive health statistics to surveillance software. Regular drive firmware lacks these features.
RAID Optimization
Many surveillance drives have features like time-limited error recovery (TLER) that prevents RAID array failures when drives get stuck processing an error. Standard drives may cause a RAID rebuild to fail in this scenario.
Can Regular Hard Drives Reliably Run 24/7 in Surveillance?
While regular hard drives are not specifically designed for continuous operation in video surveillance systems, they can be made to work reliably if set up and managed properly:
Manage Vibration Issues
Use anti-vibration mounts and limit placement near vibrating equipment. This helps avoid performance issues or damage over time.
Maintain Proper Temperature
Ensure drives are in cooled enclosures and equipment rooms. High temperatures increase the risk of failure.
Allow Time for Spin Up
Configure the recording system to account for the drive’s spin up time from idle before expecting video storage. Surveillance drives spin up faster.
Limit Environmental Factors
Avoid dusty and humid environments that could impact regular drives without sealed enclosures.
Configure for Constant Writes
Optimize by disabling head parking and configuring for RAID operation to match continuous video writing. TLER support also helps.
Use Redundancy and Backups
RAID storage and external backups are essential in case of any individual drive failure. Surveillance drives naturally have better redundancy.
What are the Downsides of Using a Regular Hard Drive for Surveillance?
While usable if cared for, regular desktop hard drives have some inherent downsides for video surveillance:
Higher Failure Risk
The 24/7 high workload increases the chance of failure versus intermittent desktop usage. Surveillance drives are built for persistent operation.
Limited Write Performance
Regular drives may only support a few simultaneous HD streams before maxing out the write performance. Surveillance drives support more concurrent streams.
Lack of Surveillance Firmware
No specialized firmware for RAID interaction, drive statistics, or video streaming optimization. Surveillance drives have tailored firmware.
RAID Rebuild Issues
Higher likelihood of RAID failure during rebuilds after drive swaps. Surveillance drives avoid this through TLER support.
Voiding of Warranty
Desktop drive warranties may be voided by constant operation violating runtime limits. Surveillance drives honor workload ratings.
Shorter Lifespan
Cumulative runtime and workload will wear out a regular drive sooner than a surveillance drive rated for high usage.
No Auto Recovery Features
Surveillance drives have self-monitoring and auto-recovery of bad sectors to keep recording uninterrupted. Regular drives lack this.
What Capacity Hard Drive Do I Need for Surveillance?
The required hard drive capacity depends on your surveillance camera resolution, number of cameras, and video retention policy:
Calculate Needed Storage
Multiply the storage needed for each camera’s video settings by the total number of cameras to be recorded. Add at least 25% extra room.
Account for Expansion
Plan for adding more cameras in the future, which will increase the storage space needed. Building excess capacity allows room to grow.
Factor In Redundancy
Using RAID storage requires drive capacity overhead to allow for disk failures. For example, RAID 5 needs the equivalent of one drive of redundant space.
Consider Retention Time
More video retention means larger drives are needed. Balance legal requirements, liability window, and age at which incidents may come to light.
Choose Reliable Drives
Drives matched to constant surveillance workloads will have longer usable lifespans. This optimizes the storage investment.
Allow Headroom
Sudden bursts of activity can temporarily spike storage needs, so allow at least 25% extra space. Surveillance drives sustain write bursts better.
Here is an example capacity calculation:
* 10 cameras at 1080p resolution
* Recording 24 hrs/day, 30 days retention
* 1080p uses 2GB/hr, so 20GB/camera/day
* 10 cameras x 20GB x 30 days = 6,000GB (6TB)
* Add 25% capacity overhead = 7.5TB total storage needed
How Should Hard Drives be Configured for Optimal Surveillance Recording?
Properly configuring hard drives helps improve reliability and performance for continuous surveillance workloads:
Use RAID Arrays
Configuring drives in a RAID array adds redundancy to protect against failures, improves write speeds, and enables rebuilding failed drives.
Enable TLER
Enabling the TLER feature avoids RAID failures if drives pause too long during error recovery. Critical for surveillance RAID reliability.
Disable Head Parking
Prevents pauses and wear from repositioning heads after idle periods. Video recording has no real idle times.
Tune for Performance
Optimize block sizes, caching, and queuing for sustained transfers rather than burst desktop workloads. Helps smooth video streams.
Isolate Workload
Avoid running other applications on surveillance storage. Mixing workloads increases performance problems and fragmentation.
Choose Appropriate File System
Some file systems like exFAT have lower overhead for sustained writing compared to NTFS. But test for compatibility.
Index Footage External to Drives
Maintain video indexing and databases on separate drives from storage. This avoids competition for writes.
What are the Best Hard Drive Brands for Surveillance?
Some hard drive brands that are well suited for video surveillance storage include:
Western Digital Purple
Purpose-built for 24/7 surveillance with optimized firmware, RAID features, workload ratings up to 360 TB/year, and 3-year warranties.
Seagate SkyHawk
Designed for DVR and NVR systems with 24×7 operation, supporting up to 64 HD cameras per drive and 300 TB/year workloads. Has image perfect firmware.
WD Red Pro
NAS-optimized drives but also rated for up to 300 TB/year workloads. Supports TLER and RAID environments well for surveillance storage.
Toshiba Surveilance
Hard drives engineered specifically for write-intensive surveillance applications. Tested for 180 TB/year workloads.
Hitachi Deskstar
Mainstream drives but models like the Deskstar 7K4000 offer TLER support, 4TB+ capacities, and 240 TB/year workload ratings if configured properly.
What are the Best SSDs for Surveillance Recording and Retention?
SSDs provide benefits like faster write speeds, silent operation, and resistance to vibration/shock compared to hard drives. Top models for surveillance include:
Samsung 870 QVO SSD
High performance, reliable 3-bit MLC NAND flash rated for 720 TBW (terabytes written) endurance. Up to 8TB capacities available.
Western Digital Purple SC QD101 SSD
Purpose-built for surveillance with 80TBW endurance. Supports AI analytics, edge computing, and write-intensive workloads.
Kingston DC500 Series SSDs
Data center-optimized SSDs with strict QoS requirements. 25GB/day writes for 5 years. Available up to 9.6TB.
Seagate Skyhawk 510 Series
Designed for multi-streamWrites and RAID. Up to 1 Drive Write Per Day warranty with capacities up to 15.6TB.
Intel DC P4510 SSD
Enterprise-grade SSD with 10 drive writes per day over 5-year lifespan. Features power loss data protection.
What are the Main Factors to Consider when Choosing Hard Drives for Surveillance Storage?
Key factors to weigh when selecting hard drives for surveillance systems include:
Workload Rating
Compare manufacturer workload ratings against your projected usage. Allows for growth and margin of error.
Drive Interface
NVR/DVR interface compatibility is key, with SATA mainstream but some supporting SAS. Interfaces like USB have limitations.
RAID Support
Seek drives supporting TLER, caching optimizations, and other RAID-friendly features. Avoid drives that may cause RAID failures.
Environmental Resistance
Surveillance drives have vibration, shock, dust, humidity protections that prolong life in uncontrolled environments like outdoors.
Warranties
Length of warranty and support for 24/7 workloads. Three years is typical for purpose-built surveillance drives, with options for longer.
Intelligent Monitoring
Smart features that enable self-monitoring and recovery help avoid failures and warnings of problems before loss of video.
Cost Per TB
Get the optimal balance of quality, warranted workload levels, and TB per dollar or euro. Buying consumer may cost more long term.
Conclusion
Regular hard drives can work for surveillance storage with proper configuration, redundancy, and management. But for truly reliable, long term 24/7 operation, purpose-built surveillance-optimized drives with specialized firmware and workload tolerance are worth the additional investment. Combining smart capacity planning, RAID setups, adequate environmental controls, and using enterprise-class drives gives the best assurance that critical video will be continuously saved and accessible when needed most.
