What's the Best Hard Drive for Security Cameras?

Sourced from real discussions on r/homedefense and r/DataHoarder, cross-checked against live PricePerGig listings.

A security surveillance rated HDD has specific firmware (the software that runs the hard drive) that knows to prioritise keeping up with writing multiple streams of data over writing ‘perfect’ data every time. A security surveillance drive knows the chances of you actually reading that tiny bit of data are pretty low, whereas a standard drive will spend a great deal of time (up to seconds) writing, rewriting and marking bad sectors so it doesn’t come across this again; all that takes time, during that time the NVR has just been writing, or trying to, constant streams of video. A standard drive on Windows just says ‘hold up, I’ve got to sort this out’ and Windows obliges, an NVR is far too busy dealing with stream after stream of data, so at some point a standard drive drops data from potentially all the streams, a surveillance drive knows to just keep going. There are a few more reasons and pointers, so read on to find out more.

The good news if you’re looking for a surveillance rated drive is that they are often cheaper than standard drives per TB.

The table above compares live WD Purple and Seagate SkyHawk prices on your marketplace, the two surveillance ranges over 4TB, so you can find the best price per TB.

Why surveillance drives are different

Most hard drives assume a gentle life. Bursts of activity, then idle.

An NVR drive never gets to rest. It records around the clock, often juggling many camera streams at once.

Surveillance rated drives are tuned for exactly that. They handle constant writing, cope with lots of simultaneous streams, and use firmware that prioritises smooth recording over everything else.

That is why the dedicated surveillance ranges exist, and why they are worth it for this job.

Can you just use a normal drive?

You can. Plenty of people do. But it is a compromise.

A desktop drive in an NVR will work at first.

Over time though, the relentless 24/7 writing wears it faster than it was designed for, and under heavy multi camera load it can drop frames. The last thing you want is a gap in the footage on the one night it mattered.

For a camera or two, a good NAS drive is a reasonable middle ground. For a serious multi camera system, buy the surveillance rated drive.

How much capacity to buy

Footage eats space, and the amount depends on three things.

• How many cameras you run.
• The resolution and frame rate of each.
• How many days of footage you want to keep before it loops.

As a rough anchor, a few cameras at sensible quality holding a couple of weeks wants somewhere around 4TB to 8TB. Crank up cameras, quality or retention and it climbs fast.

Buy a size up if you are unsure, because running out means losing your oldest footage. Check the live table for the best value big drive.

The bottom line

The best hard drive for security cameras is a surveillance rated one, built for constant 24/7 writing and many camera streams at once.

A normal drive will limp along, but for anything serious the dedicated surveillance range is worth it. Work out your capacity from cameras, quality and retention, then grab the best price per TB from the live table above. Your future self will be glad the footage is actually there when you need it.

So next time you’re buying a drive for your NVR, prioritise a surveillance rated drive like the WD Purple, Seagate SkyHawk or the Toshiba S300.

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