Video surveillance has become an essential component of security solutions in South Africa, particularly when one considers the continually increasing crime rate and the need to protect people and assets from those with malicious intent, says Michael Watts, WD business unit manager at DCC.

Video surveillance technology has evolved along with this need, becoming more affordable and easier to implement as digital solutions become increasingly available. The quality of recordings too has improved dramatically, from the traditional 720 and 1 080 pixel digital cameras to High Definition (HD) megapixel solutions, and now increasingly available 4K ultra-HD solutions. These improved technologies offer a clearer picture for more accurate views, enabling perpetrators to be more readily identified and further deterring crime. However, as with all digital solutions, the hard drive is the crucial component, and selecting the right drive with sufficient storage capacity is of the utmost importance in delivering effective digital video surveillance.

Aside from the cameras themselves, the hard disk drive (HDD) is the most important part of a digital surveillance or CCTV solution, and yet this component is often not given much thought. The reality is, however, that without the right HDD technology, even the most sophisticated cameras will not deliver the reliability required for surveillance footage. The hard drive thus has the potential to become the single point of failure that could cause the entire surveillance network to cease functioning. In addition, the higher the quality of the footage, the larger the files it records, which in turn means that larger capacity hard drives are essential in ensuring on-going video recording capability.

One of the most common mistakes is to use a hard drive that was not designed for the high demand environment of video surveillance. Should the HDD fail, or the data become corrupted, recordings will be lost. When you consider a general office computer runs for eight hours a day, five days a week, while CCTV runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, the problem is clear. The majority of desktop drives simply were not designed to handle this type of always-on environment. Ensuring the effectiveness and continued functionality of a surveillance solution therefore relies on the use of surveillance-class hard drives that are designed and built to maximise efficiency in these environments.

Furthermore, desktop drives are not able to handle recording functionality from more than one camera. Surveillance networks typically consist of many more cameras than this, which introduces compatibility issues. Furthermore, surveillance networks must simultaneously record and playback footage, which requires the drives to be able to read and write data at the same time.

The higher the definition of the camera, the larger this workload becomes. This places increased pressure on the drive, with significantly increased file sizes requiring to be read and written simultaneously. In addition, the storage demands creating by HD and Ultra-HD surveillance cameras require large hard drive capacity. Standard analogue cameras require approximately 1 Gigabyte (GB) to 1.4GB of capacity per camera for 24-hours of recording. With the use of HD cameras, the storage requirement for this footage per camera dramatically increases, and the problem is even more acute with Ultra-HD. Considering the multi-camera, always-on surveillance environment, storage capacity becomes a serious issue.

High capacity surveillance-class hard drives solve these challenges, and are engineered to reduce power consumption and ensure reliability, availability and the highest levels of data integrity within digital surveillance networks. Sophisticated technology within these drives reduce frame loss, improve playback and increase the number of drive bays supported. In addition, they are able to deal with multiple simultaneous camera streams, so that multiple cameras and multiple hard drives can easily integrate into one connected network, and are tested for compatibility with a wide range of surveillance systems to ensure seamless integration into new or existing video surveillance solutions.

Video surveillance is essential as part of an effective security solution. However, choosing the right hard drive for your digital CCTV network is a critical decision that can have long-term implications. Utilising hard drives that will continue to function optimally is critical in ensuring the integrity of surveillance solutions. It can mean the difference between catching and convicting the perpetrators opposed to them being released due to lack of evidence.