The need for surveillance extends far beyond traditional security. Consider a complex industrial facility where surveillance is utilized for operational efficiency and quality control along with protection. Surveillance helps identify bottlenecks, monitor workflow, and ensure products meet quality standards before they ship.
Storage solutions that are not only reliable but also customized to meet certain operating requirements are becoming increasingly in demand due to the evolving surveillance needs.
The choice between hard drives and solid-state drives (SSDs) is crucial. However, the question isn’t about which one is better. The decision comes down to what combination of storage works for your specific use case and the goals you want to achieve.
Storage Solutions for Surveillance: What to Look For
When choosing the right storage solution for your surveillance needs, consider these essential questions to guide your selection:
- How much video surveillance storage capacity do I need?
- Is the write endurance sufficient for my needs?
- How fast does the system need to retrieve and analyze data?
- Can the storage withstand tough conditions?
- Will its energy efficiency reduce operational costs?
The answers to these questions will help you pick a surveillance storage solution that optimizes the performance and reliability of your surveillance system.
Advantages of Hard Drives for Surveillance
Here’s what you need to know about using hard drives for surveillance data:
Higher Capacity is Required for Continuous Recording
Surveillance applications need continuous, uninterrupted recording, which requires storage solutions capable of handling a large volume of data. Surveillance hard drives excel in this area, offering massive storage space at a much better price point than comparable SSD storage.
Cost-Effective Storage for Long-Term Archiving
Hard drives provide substantial storage capacity and deliver cost-effective storage for long-term data archiving. The lower cost per gigabyte—when compared to SSDs—makes hard drives a better choice for companies that maintain extensive backup files.
High Write Workload Endurance
Hard drives are particularly valuable for surveillance systems because they’re built to handle extensive data recording over prolonged periods. Hard drives work by writing data onto spinning disks, which is well-suited for the continuous, high-volume recording required in surveillance video storage.
In contrast, SSDs use flash memory to store data, which has a finite number of write cycles. After a certain amount of data is written, SSDs can start to degrade, potentially leading to data loss or failure. While SSDs are faster and more energy-efficient, their limited write capacity makes them less ideal for applications like surveillance that require constant data writing.
Therefore, hard drives are preferred in surveillance setups for their durability and ability to handle vast amounts of data writing without quick degradation, ensuring a reliable storage solution over time. This dependability—combined with typically lower costs compared to SSDs—makes hard drives a practical choice for long-term, high-volume data recording.
Storage Density in Data Center Racks
Surveillance hard drives are particularly advantageous for large-scale video analytics infrastructure due to their high storage density. This means they can hold more data per unit of physical space compared to SSDs. This feature is especially beneficial in enterprise-level deployments, where efficient use of space and maximizing storage capacity are key priorities.
In settings like data centers, where racks are filled with storage devices, the ability to pack a large amount of storage into a small space helps manage both costs and physical infrastructure requirements. Hard drives fit well into standard data center racks and can store substantial video data, which is critical for video analytics applications that process and analyze large volumes of video footage.
Better, More Mature Data Recovery Process
Hard drive technology has been around for a long time, which means the methods and tools for recovering data from them are well-developed.
In the event of a drive failure, the mature technology behind hard drives makes it possible to recover lost data more effectively and reliably. Having reliable data recovery options provides an extra layer of security, ensuring that important video footage can be retrieved even after encountering hardware problems.
SkyHawk Hard Drives
Seagate SkyHawk™ Surveillance Hard Drives are specifically engineered to meet the demands of 24×7 surveillance operations. These drives are optimized for continuous recording and high write workloads, ensuring reliability and performance in security environments.
Compatibility with Existing Surveillance Systems
Hard drives are widely compatible with existing surveillance systems, making integration and upgrades straightforward and cost-effective. This compatibility ensures organizations can continue using their current infrastructure without extensive and costly modifications.
Continued Improvements to Hard Drive Technology
Hard drive technology continues to evolve, offering enhanced performance and greater capacities to meet the growing demands of modern surveillance systems.
A prime example is Mozaic, Seagate’s unique implementation of heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) technology. Mozaic 3+™ represents a giant leap forward, enhancing hard drive performance, storage density, and capacity, making hard drives even more suitable for the rigorous requirements of continuous surveillance recording.
Now that we’ve covered the advantage of using hard drives for surveillance, let’s examine the role of SSDs in this use case.
Advantages of SSDs for Surveillance
SSDs are beneficial for surveillance backup in certain situations like the following.
High Operating Temperature Environments
SSDs are exceptionally suited for surveillance applications in high-temperature environments. Unlike traditional hard drives, SSDs can operate reliably even when temperatures exceed 140°F/60°C. This makes them ideal for use in locations like outdoor enclosures or industrial settings where adequate cooling is not always available.
Mobile Video Intelligence and Analytics Applications
For on-the-go video intelligence and analytics (VIA), SSDs play a vital role because they can withstand significant amounts of vibrations and shocks. Combined with low power consumption, they’re particularly effective in mobile environments, such as public transport systems, emergency vehicles, and drones.
Physical Size and Weight
Being compact and light makes SSDs ideal for surveillance scenarios where space is at a premium or where the storage system needs to be unobtrusive. This is particularly beneficial in modern urban environments, complex machine integrations, or applications where the physical footprint of storage media needs to be minimized.
Seagate Nytro® Enterprise SSDs are an excellent choice for surveillance systems. These SSDs provide high endurance and durability, tailored to meet the demands of high-stakes data processing and storage in surveillance applications.
Breaking It Down: When Should You Use Hard Drives vs. SSDs?
The decision to use hard drives vs. SSDs for surveillance video will depend on the application.
Applications Where Hard Drives Shine
1. Large-Scale Storage Needs
Due to their higher capacity and cost-effectiveness, hard drives are ideal for large-scale surveillance systems that require continuous recording over extended periods. Use Seagate’s surveillance storage calculator to calculate what storage capacity your organization needs.
2. Cost-Sensitive Projects
When budget constraints are a key consideration, hard drives offer a cost-effective option for storage, providing a lower cost per gigabyte compared to other storage technologies.
The affordability of hard drives makes them a smart choice for long-term data archiving, where large volumes of data need to be stored economically.
The price advantage of hard drives becomes particularly significant in setups requiring extensive storage capacity, such as archiving massive amounts of digital information over many years. This cost efficiency doesn’t compromise the ability to access and retrieve stored data when needed, making hard drives a practical and cost-effective solution for long-term storage needs.
3. High Write Endurance
Surveillance systems often need to operate 24/×7, continuously recording video to ensure security. This requires a storage solution that can handle constant data input without faltering.Surveillance hard drives are particularly suited for this task due to their design, which supports high write workloads.
Hard drives operate using spinning disks and a read/write head that moves over them. This mechanical setup is particularly good at handling continuous, sequential writing of data—like video recording—where data is added in a steady stream. This allows hard drives to record hours of video without slowdowns or performance issues.
Furthermore, hard drives have a higher capacity for sustained data transfer compared to some other technologies that might slow down as they heat up or as their memory cells wear out. This endurance in recording capabilities makes hard drives a reliable choice when losing video footage due to a storage failure is not an option.
Use Case: Municipal Surveillance Systems
A large city might employ hard drive-based surveillance systems throughout its public spaces. Since surveillance-optimized hard drives are ideal for long-term archiving and continuous recording, substantial amounts of video footage can be stored on them. This approach allows city officials to maintain comprehensive surveillance archives essential for safety and regulatory compliance while respecting budgetary constraints.
Surveillance Applications for SSDs
1. High Operating Temperature Deployments
SSDs are the preferred choice in environments where the system must operate reliably at elevated temperatures without the benefit of adequate cooling.
2. Mobile Surveillance Units
In mobile settings—like public transportation or emergency vehicles—SSDs provide the required resilience against external shocks and vibrations.
3. Compact Spaces
When space is at a premium, the smaller size and lighter weight of SSDs make them ideal for integrating into tight spaces without compromising performance.
Use Case: Industrial Facility Monitoring
A manufacturing plant could use SSDs within its surveillance systems to monitor critical areas requiring high performance and durability. With SSDs, you have quick access to footage to monitor production lines and ensure worker safety. They operate well under conditions that may be detrimental to hard drives, such as ongoing movement and extreme temperatures.
Surveillance Applications that Benefit from Using a Combination of HDDs and SSDs
1. Optimized Performance and Cost
Surveillance systems equipped with both hard drives and SSDs enhance the system’s overall efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
Surveillance SSDs are extremely fast, allowing quick access to important data when needed, such as reviewing recent footage for security incidents. On the other hand, hard drives offer larger storage capacities at a lower cost, making them ideal for long-term storage of video archives.
This combination means a surveillance system can quickly process and retrieve critical data with the speed of SSDs, while economically storing vast amounts of video data on hard drives. This strategic use of both types of drives helps balance the need for performance with budget constraints, ensuring the surveillance system is effective and affordable.
2. Enhanced Reliability
Surveillance setups that use SSDs to manage system operations and live video feeds and hard drives for long-term storage can greatly improve the system’s reliability and efficiency. SSDs are known for their quick data access speeds and lack of moving parts, which reduces mechanical failure risks. This makes them ideal for a surveillance system’s real-time operations, such as processing and displaying live video feeds without lag.
Hard drives provide robust storage capacity and durability over extensive periods of time, making them perfect for archiving video footage. By assigning the role of active data handling to SSDs and the long-term data storage to hard drives, the system minimizes the chances of performance bottlenecks and ensures both current and historical video data are maintained effectively.
Use Case: Retail Security Systems
A retail chain might use a hybrid surveillance storage solution with SSDs managing high-priority areas like entrances and checkout counters for immediate data access and incident response and hard drives storing continuous video from the general store areas for cost-effective, long-term storage. This combination optimizes the surveillance system’s efficiency and cost, balancing quick data retrieval with extensive video archiving.
Integrating Hard Drives and SSDs in a VIA Workflow
For a VIA workflow, SSDs and hard drives can be strategically employed to maximize their respective advantages. For instance, SSDs could be used for their rapid access times to run real-time analytics and immediate event detection.
Simultaneously, hard drives can store vast amounts of analyzed data and archive it for future reference or further analysis. This setup ensures optimal performance in terms of speed, capacity, and cost-effectiveness by allocating resources where they are most needed.
Optimize Your Surveillance Storage with Seagate
Seagate offers a range of surveillance hard drive and surveillance SSD options designed to meet diverse surveillance needs. Whether you require the vast storage capacity of hard drives for continuous recording or the swift, durable performance of SSDs for critical applications, Seagate provides reliable, tailored solutions.
Embrace the advantages of both technologies and optimize your surveillance system with Seagate — where innovation meets security.
