How to Get a Professional – Type Surveillance Solution for Home or SMB

In small towns and large cities all over the world, surveillance is on the rise.

Also, in Romania, more and more cameras are installed, in order to prevent criminal acts. In 2013*, more than 1,000 cameras were installed and activated in Bucharest and the number increased this year significantly.

We are living in a world where we want to ensure our goods. Even if we are talking about assets,  people or any other. The need came from the fact that, for example, according to  the National Institute of Statistics**, from 2009 to 2011, the rate of criminal acts increased in Romania with 40%.

One of the best solutions and actually the optimal one to increase the security is getting a surveillance solution up and running. Rarely will anyone attempt to harm you or to commit any other criminal acts when they know their actions are being recorded on camera. Cameras keep you and your personal property safe.

When we take a look at the video surveillance market out there, we can find a wide array of products and solutions, divided into two big categories. One, at the tip of the iceberg, there are companies serving large business applications that need dozens, or even hundreds of cameras. At the bottom there are all-in-one home surveillance kits that you can buy online for a decent amount of money.

But there is a link between these two categories. The common background is the need for a good storage solution.

Hard drives for surveillance systems

An equally key component of surveillance systems is the storage being used –in fact this component is what can really make or break the effectiveness of the entire system. If a system is being purchased without storage, the buyer should avoid the temptation to go out and purchase the cheapest hard drive he can find. In most cases this will be some sort of desktop drive that is not designed for 24/7 use, won’t be able to capture HD or FHD video from multiple cameras without dropping frames and isn’t designed to consume less power and thus generate less heat. This last point is a major concern in terms of reliability, as excessive heat can drastically reduce the life of a hard drive and can also adversely affect read and write operations when the drive is being used in the surveillance system. Also, in the end, if you chose to buy a cheap storage solution, those dropping frames could mean the exact time when the video surveillance system caught the burglars face.

Key factor for the optimal surveillance system

The Western Digital solution for the surveillance systems is a hard drive name WD Purple. The unit is intended for use in surveillance systems equipped with up to eight drives. 

In order to find more information about the surveillance market and what should we look for when we want to buy a surveillance system, we Interviewed Norbert Koziar, WD Senior Sales Manager Central Eastern Europe.

 

Q1: WD Purple is the newest addition to the Color of Choice line-up. Can you explain briefly the characteristics of every drive and why is Purple different from the rest? 

The Blue line-up is dedicated for every day computing, the Green is for high capacity, the Black is dedicated to high performance systems, the Red is for integrating in NAS systems and Purple is for Surveillance. The new WD Purple drive looks like a traditional desktop hard drive that supports the latest SATA3 (6Gbps) standard, but has some unique key differentiators.

 

Standard home hard drives try to do their jobs as usual, but they cannot cover all the specific needs of surveillance activity. Designed specifically for video surveillance units, the drive can work 24/7 for always-on environments.

 

Most other hard drives are designed to work about 8 hours per day. Moreover, Purple HDD comes equipped with AllFrame and Advanced Format Technology (AFT). The former is a technology that helps reduce video footage loss with a proprietary cache policy management technology. AllFrame reduces video interruptions that commonly occur when desktop hard drives are incorrectly used as storage in security systems. Missed frames and lost footage is a serious problem when an event occurs and surveillance footage needs to be retrieved. WD Purple with AllFrame provides the confidence you should expect when it’s time to play back and review critical surveillance footage. The latter allows for more efficient media format that enables increased areal densities.

Q2: What are the main specifications of an optimal hard drive dedicated to video surveillance systems?

One of the most important specifications is the low power consumption. This is crucial in high-temperature always-on surveillance environments. Our hard drive, WD Purple, uses the exclusive IntelliSeek technology, that calculates the optimum seek speeds which lowers power consumption, noise and vibration that can damage and cause desktop drives to wear out more quickly. When you invest in a premium surveillance-class drive you worry less while enjoying the benefits over a longer period of time.

Second, the compatibility between the hard drive and the system itself is also very important. For example, most of the typical surveillance systems vibrate. If the installed hard drive was not optimized to resist, most likely it will be damaged very quickly. WD Purple has been tested to be compatible in a wide-range of security systems. These drives are designed to replace standard desktop drives that were not designed for the harsh 24/7 always-on, high-definition surveillance environment. Desktop drives are built to run for only short intervals and are not engineered to withstand high-temperature fluctuations and equipment vibrations.

Third, one of the key specifications of WD Purple is that it reduces video frame loss and that the caching algorithms are tuned for write-intensive, low bit rate and high stream count applications.

 

Q3: In terms of performance, what is the maximum number of cameras this product can offer support for at best quality?

WD Purple hard drives are optimized to support up to 32 high-definition surveillance cameras, giving the flexibility to upgrade and expand the security system in the futurer.

 

Q4: Is WD Purple dedicated also for enterprise surveillance systems?

We recommend the Se and Re enterprise lines for large enterprise surveillance systems. Those series were developed to be used on this segment. WD Purple is intended to be used in SMB and home environment and has a big advantage over the Se and Re: price! The unit can achieve an enterprise level of performance for specific tasks at a much reduced price point.

Q5: What can you tell to those users who already have a surveillance system installed in their house or organization? Should they expect legacy system or maybe compatibility problems if they want to integrate WD solution with theirs?

WD Purple surveillance hard drives are built for compatibility with industry-leading chassis and chip set manufacturers for seamless integration into new or existing video surveillance systems. We actually have an online support tool for the clients. The customers can check out our compatibility selector at www.wdc.com to find out what surveillance drive is right for them