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Storage specialist WD launched the Purple NV, a purpose-built line of 3.5-inch, high-capacity 4TB and 6TB hard drives designed for scalable network video recorder (NVR) surveillance systems.
The drives are intended for larger-scale network surveillance systems utilizing higher hard drive bay counts and greater numbers of attached cameras, along with the resultant increase in data created.
“Surveillance systems are different from standard PCs in that the application is different. Surveillance systems primarily write to the hard drive where PC systems tend to have a more equal mix of reading and writing,” Darrin Bulik, director of product marketing for WD’s storage technology business unit, told eWEEK. “In order to provide the best storage solution for a surveillance system that can have a high number of streams from the associated cameras as well as take into account the high write intensive environment and higher number of drives in a system, WD has the WD Purple family of surveillance HDDs.”
When combined with ATA streaming support, AllFrame technology helps to reduce video footage loss with a proprietary cache policy management technology to help improve data flow and playback.
In addition, the drives, which are designed with tarnish-resistant components, include exclusive firmware upgrades that protect against video pixilation and interruptions within a surveillance system.
“What is the cost of having issues with a surveillance system? Using automobile tires as an example, you wouldn’t want to use standard everyday tires for higher speed or higher endurance type driving,” Bulik explained. “The same is true for hard drives. It might not cost more to utilize WD Purple hard drive in a surveillance system as compared to standard desktop drives if you need to replace the desktop drives if you are not able to get the performance or reliability from them.”
Bulik also noted WD Purple drives also come with a 3-year limited warranty, versus the 2-year limited warranty that is often offered with standard desktop drives.
In addition to offering low power consumption, the WD Purple line is optimized to support systems utilizing high numbers of high-definition surveillance cameras.
“Many years ago when the primarily computing device was only a PC, it was simple to have one hard drive satisfy the storage requirements of the computing market,” Bulik said. “As the world has become more digital, many different types of applications have come to market where the simple one size fits all PC hard drive does not meet the needs in many cases.”