Surveillance Storage

Surveillance Rated Hard Drives and microSD Cards for 24/7 Recording

Surveillance storage drives are firmware-optimized for the continuous sequential write workloads that security camera recording demands, with vibration tolerance for multi-bay NVR environments and endurance ratings that outlast standard desktop drives. The lineup from Western Digital and Seagate covers WD Purple Pro hard drives up to 18TB, WD Purple microSD cards up to 1TB, and Seagate SkyHawk AI drives, all part of the security and surveillance catalog.

Surveillance Storage for Every Use Case

• Multi-camera NVR systems — WD Purple Pro and Seagate SkyHawk AI drives supporting 64+ simultaneous camera streams with continuous write optimization
• AI-powered video analytics — SkyHawk AI drives handling simultaneous recording and deep-learning analysis streams for object detection and license plate recognition
• Edge recording on cameras — WD Purple microSD cards providing on-camera backup storage when network connectivity drops, in capacities from 64GB to 1TB
• Small office and residential NVRs — standard surveillance drives in 4TB to 8TB capacities for 4 to 8 camera systems with 30-day retention
• High-retention commercial systems — 12TB and 18TB drives in multi-bay NVRs for 90+ day footage retention across large camera deployments

Choosing the Right Surveillance Drive

Storage requirements depend on camera count, resolution, frame rate, codec, and retention period. A single 4K camera recording continuously at 15fps with H.265 compression generates roughly 1TB every 14 to 20 days. A 16-camera system at that rate consumes 12TB or more per month. Determine your retention window and multiply accordingly. WD Purple Pro drives use CMR (Conventional Magnetic Recording) for consistent write performance and support up to 64 cameras per drive with AllFrame AI firmware. Seagate SkyHawk AI drives handle 64 camera streams plus 32 AI analytics streams simultaneously with ImagePerfect AI firmware.

CMR vs. SMR Recording Technology

Surveillance drives must use CMR (Conventional Magnetic Recording) rather than SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording). CMR writes data tracks independently, maintaining consistent write speeds during the constant sequential writes that surveillance recording produces. SMR drives overlap tracks to increase density, but suffer from dramatic write-speed drops during sustained recording because the drive must reorganize data. Every surveillance drive in our catalog uses CMR technology to prevent frame loss and recording gaps.

Complete Your Surveillance System

• NVRs and Video Recorders — network video recorders that house surveillance drives and manage camera recording
• Security Cameras — IP cameras that record to NVR drives and accept microSD cards for edge storage
• Access Control Systems — credential readers and access hubs that integrate with the surveillance system
• Ethernet Switches — PoE switches connecting cameras and NVRs across the network