How to Choose the Best Hard Drive for VIGI NVR

VIGI NVR
Updated 10-24-2024 10:06:05 AM 45815
This Article Applies to: 

Surveillance systems usually need to operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. With video recordings mostly stored on a physical hard dive.  Not all hard drives are equal and there are certain requirements a customer would want to look for before purchasing a hard drive for their surveillance system. There are many types and models of hard drives on the market, and using the wrong one may lead to abnormal video, loss, or even damage to the NVR. To ensure that the video is more stable and reliable, you want to choose a hard drive designed for video surveillance or to be used in an NVR.

Below are some considerations to think about.

1. Choose a surveillance Hard Drive.

The surveillance level hard drive is designed for 24/7 continuous recording and is recommended to be used with Vigi systems

For example, Western Digital has 6 types of hard drives, including green, blue, black, red, purple, and gold, among them purple level is surveillance HDD.

Color

Typical Application

Green

home usage, HDD for file downloading

Blue

home usage, high performance and low-cost advantages

Black

video/photo editing/rendering and high-performance game console

Red

NAS environment

Purple

video surveillance storage, 24*7 continuous working design

Gold

Data Center

 

For SEAGATE, The SkyHawk series is their surveillance-level drive.

2. Recommended size and interface for the NVR.

VIGI NVRs use a SATA interface, which is common for most hard drives on the market.

we recommend using a 3.5-inch HDD.

Solid State Drives (SSD) have a shorter lifespan and tend to be more expensive, so a more standard 3.5-inch HDD is recommended for long-term use.

3. Choose a suitable volume (capacity).

The maximum volume or storage capacity of VIGI NVRs is 10TB.  You will want to choose a suitable capacity according to the environment, camera’s resolution setting, and encoding type.

Refer to the following two methods to calculate your capacity needs.

(1) Estimate via weekly storage:

In general, the monitoring scenario is relatively stable, the weekly capacity consumption is basically the same, so it is recommended to observe the capacity consumption in the past week to estimate.

HDD volume= Weekly storage * Time

(2) Calculate via VIGI Tool:

TP-Link has provided a quick tool to calculate the volume via some special parameters.

Link: https://www.tp-link.com/en/smb/vigi-tool/disk/

Note: The result is a reference value in an ideal condition, practical results will vary..

4. Suggested HDD list.

 

Brand

Model

Volume

SEAGATE SkyHawk

ST1000VX005

1TB

SEAGATE SkyHawk

ST2000VX015

2TB

SEAGATE SkyHawk

ST3000VX009

3TB

SEAGATE SkyHawk

ST4000VX007

4TB

SEAGATE SkyHawk

ST6000VX001

6TB

SEAGATE SkyHawk AI

ST10000VE001

10TB

Western Digital Purple

WD10EJRX

1TB

Western Digital Purple

WD30PURZ

3TB

Western Digital Purple

WD42EJRX

4TB

Western Digital Purple

WD63EJRX

6TB

Western Digital Purple

WD84EJRX

8TB

Western Digital Purple

WD102PURZ

10TB

 

Note: Drives may vary based on hardware version.  Reach out to support if you have questions or concerns

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