Drive systems and installations

The need for surveillance is increasing in many areas including commerce, entertainment, national security, medical/scientific, industrial, transport, domestic and retail environments.

Applications and system requirements determine the type and number of drives needed from single-drive systems and mobile recording, through multi-hard drive installations with vast data storage to multi-hard drive redundant arrays for storage and download.

Video Surveillance application types and recommended Hitachi hard drive usage

Multi-hard drive redundant arrays
For finance, government, the military – areas where data security is paramount and vast quantities of data are stored across complex networks, redundant array systems provide the most efficient solution. These can be designed to keep working when there is failure – disks can be hot swapped and data recovered automatically while the system keeps running. Redundant arrays are particularly used on workstations where storage-intensive computers such as those used for video are in operation.

Multi-hard drive installation
Security systems for applications such as inner cities and large shopping malls require multi-hard drive installation to capture and hold CCTV images from many strategic points and angles. So in these instances, there needs to be the capacity for vast data storage, as well as the ability to download history to security services if necessary.

Single-drive systems and mobile recording
These systems come into their own in smaller-scale situations where the emphasis is more on ruggedness and mobility. Typical applications would be public transport and law enforcement. Disks need to be able to withstand vibration, extreme temperatures and knocks, and perform reliably in a sometimes hostile environment.

Find out which drive is right for your requirements and application

Download our table to determine which drive would best suit your application by number of cameras and storage capacity.