Help me pick a new data drive for my BI system...

Q™

Q™

IPCT Contributor
Feb 16, 2015
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3,987
Megatroplis, USA
Please help me pick a new drive for my Blue Iris 4.x system. Here are my current specs...


  • i7-3770 3.4ghz Win 8.1 64bit (Dedicated BI4 64bit Server)
  • 7,200 rpm 1TB drive for the OS
  • (4) Hikvision DS-2CD2332-I @ 3MP
  • (11) Hikvision DS-2CD2032-I @ 3MP
  • (2) Dahua IPC-HFW3200S @ 2MP
  • (1) ACTi E33 @ 5MP
  • (2) Vivotech FD8136 @ 1MP

The new drive will be the "data drive" and will be dedicate to holding only clips and alerts. I need to hold as much Alert history as possible. Can anyone recommend a type of drive and explain why you making the recommendation?

In addition, how much disk space will I need to hold thirty (30) days of alerts? I presently record all motion on all cameras.

thanks for the help fellas!
 
@Q2U, go with the WD purple drives..they are designed for NVR's and are within a few dollars of other drives.
The best way to determine how much space you need for alerts is to look at the folder and see how much space you have used over the past 30 days...
 
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Yup, WD purple is the best optimized for this type of load.

The needed size is something you'll have to calculate for yourself. My Blue Iris doesn't save a lot of clips, but I'll use it as an example anyway.

My Blue Iris data directories (including Alerts, New, and Storage folders) is 229 GB total. It contains clips from today, May 12, back to September 23 of last year. That is 231 days. Simple division says 229 GB / 231 days = 0.991 GB per day. On average. Yours is probably a lot higher than that or you wouldn't be wondering about a new drive :)

With a load as light as mine, any drive is fine. LOL.
 
I was looking at the WD Purples and noticed that they appear to have a rotational speed of 5400rpm which seems rather ancient to me. No?
 
Q2U said:
I was looking at the WD Purples and noticed that they appear to have a rotational speed of 5400rpm which seems rather ancient to me. No?
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You are writing a predictable amount of data to the drive. At most, you are looking at 40MB/sec of incoming video data. The WD purple has 140MB/sec sequential write speed, you will not even come close to that with your cams. You buy the purple due to it's optimized cache handling which is built for multiple data streams. There is no need to worry about it being 5400rpm.
 
5400rpm is not ancient, its efficient.. there is no need for a 7200rpm drive for surveillance unless you like wasting electricity.

A Single Purple can handle 1080Mbps of video with ease, at 10Mbps for a HD camera its got speed enough for > ~100 cameras.

Ive got 4 1080p (~40Mbps, 5MB/s) cameras writing to a WD Purple 4TB 24/7 for nearly a year now without issue... thats constant writing for a year solid.. I get about 12 days of video for each camera.
 
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thanks, my brain had malfunctioned, today is the last day of my mom's radiation and chemo treatments; after 4 months of hell my brain is taking a vacation today... fixed my post.
 
I have been using a 1TB Western Digital Black drive now for quite a few years, and zero issues. I have 6 720p cameras recording to it 24/7 and have allotted 500GB of the drive to recordings.
 
The WD Black line is more of a general purpose high performance drive. I intend to put one in my next gaming PC build to hold whatever won't fit on the SSD. As with any working drive, it will handle cameras just fine. Purple drives are not really necessary in most situations :)
 
bp2008 said:
The WD Black line is more of a general purpose high performance drive. I intend to put one in my next gaming PC build to hold whatever won't fit on the SSD. As with any working drive, it will handle cameras just fine. Purple drives are not really necessary in most situations :)
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Cannot beat the price either! I think Fry's was selling it for $40 something dollars a week or so ago.
 
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