Hard drives designed for recorders
Our PATRONUM camera systems support hard drives from almost all manufacturers. We always recommend types designed for camera-system operation, however. A good choice is for example the Western Digital PURPLE line. These drives were made directly for recorder needs, are ready for 24/7 operation, have lower power consumption and offer up to 8 TB capacity with support for up to 64 cameras per disk and 8+ disks per system. They also have vibration sensors that stabilise the write head and extend disk life.
Which capacity to choose?
If you record continuously — i.e. all cameras non-stop — calculating disk capacity is fairly simple. Just consider the number of cameras, their resolution, frames per second (FPS) and possibly the codec (bitrate). For event/alarm-only recording, capacity depends on the number of events and system configuration — in that case you can save up to 95% of daily capacity compared to continuous recording.
For continuous recording at maximum quality you can generally use these values:
- 2.0 MP camera — about 20 GB/day
- 5.0 MP camera — about 45 GB/day
- 8.0 MP camera — about 75 GB/day
- You can also calculate the required capacity yourself with the online calculator.
The values apply to both AHD and IP cameras. With the H.265 codec you can expect lower data usage.
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