WD Purple 4TB Surveillance Hard Disk Drive $95

This is a good deal. Why so little love. I don't understand SD anymore

"WD Purple drives have been engineered specifically for the extreme demands of high temperature, 24/7 surveillance systems."

Red or This

If you power on/off the system the cameras are recorded to frequently (daily for example) then Red would be better than these. The biggest caveat to these particular drives (Purple) are power on/off cycles that age it. With that said, they are by far the #1 most used/recommended drive on the market for cameras with continuous recording. They are designed to write a lot to the drive and then to have that data removed for more write time (most people have a setup where when drive reaches X amount of storage capacity and/or this specific time has expired to erase the oldest data not flagged for archive).



Cloud

I recommend getting an affordable cloud storage so that your data isn't purely on these drives. I'd prioritize images over video. Video takes a while to upload, images can be uploaded very fast so if someone broke in and knew you had cameras, they could find their way to your system and at least grab the drives if not the whole computer. At least if there are images in the cloud - police have something to go by. Even if you have SD cards in your PoE cameras.. I'd still take the brief time it takes to auto upload images.

Of course you can do clips too like most of these normal wireless cameras have but on your own personal cloud account instead where you get to pic how long each event is clipped for. (When you clip and event + take pics, you still have that 24/7 recording on top of it all so if you need to see the event in its entirety, you can).



Anyways, I've been using Purple for a while and have zero complaints. When I need to look up a clip, I never have lag coming from read times on the drive, its always very fast to respond. Just remember that this one drive shouldn't be where ALL of your data is stored, offsite storage is super important.

Quote from davelikesdeals2 : Red or This If you power on/off the system the cameras are recorded to frequently (daily for example) then Red would be better than these. The biggest caveat to these particular drives (Purple) are power on/off cycles that age it. With that said, they are by far the #1 most used/recommended drive on the market for cameras with continuous recording. They are designed to write a lot to the drive and then to have that data removed for more write time (most people have a setup where when drive reaches X amount of storage capacity and/or this specific time has expired to erase the oldest data not flagged for archive). Cloud I recommend getting an affordable cloud storage so that your data isn't purely on these drives. I'd prioritize images over video. Video takes a while to upload, images can be uploaded very fast so if someone broke in and knew you had cameras, they could find their way to your system and at least grab the drives if not the whole computer. At least if there are images in the cloud - police have something to go by. Even if you have SD cards in your PoE cameras.. I'd still take the brief time it takes to auto upload images. Of course you can do clips too like most of these normal wireless cameras have but on your own personal cloud account instead where you get to pic how long each event is clipped for. (When you clip and event + take pics, you still have that 24/7 recording on top of it all so if you need to see the event in its entirety, you can). Anyways, I've been using Purple for a while and have zero complaints. When I need to look up a clip, I never have lag coming from read times on the drive, its always very fast to respond. Just remember that this one drive shouldn't be where ALL of your data is stored, offsite storage is super important.

Thanks for the info.
I have both a Swann DVR system and a Q-See DVR system that stopped recording and stopped transmitting signal after about 4 to 5 years of continuous usage. Do you think if it has anything to do with the hard drive or the other electronics inside the DVR? Should I try replacing the hard drive or just buy a new system?

Quote from cndealking : This is a good deal. Why so little love. I don't understand SD anymore

Maybe ppl bitter about the SMR thing (aka "the shingles" aka "shingle-gate")

I do remember a whole lotts SD love for red drives...personally i never liked them or their value and had tons of issues with wd's dying in nas's in general at the 1yr mark...at best so i had wrote them off long before red's...

Tried to tell em to use toshiba/hgst/seagate who also use SMR but only in the lower lines or drives marketed as desktop occasionally but archive / backup/ general drives mostly, not nas specific drives...

I need 8TB and it's all out of stock

Would these be suitable for use as NAS in raid 1?

Is it Red inside?

Quote from handoverfist77 : Would these be suitable for use as NAS in raid 1?

I do not recommend. Normal drives spend more time on data integrity check than these drives. It is built for a purpose.

Quote from Jdmalibu : Is it Red inside?

No, it's a blue inside but inside of that is a red and inside that is a black

What am I missing, I can get it for 89.95 on Amazon?

Quote from tward392 : What am I missing, I can get it for 89.95 on Amazon?

The $89.95 one is ships and sold by AMERILIFE which seems to have a dismal 19% positive rating.

Quote from tward392 : What am I missing, I can get it for 89.95 on Amazon?

If you live an AMERILIFE? Hint: seller's name.

Bought one of these in the past and it failed in about a year and a half