As storage capacity demand expands by more than 50 percent every year, according to Forbes, the need for fast, high-capacity and reliable storage solutions is clear. But can the hard drive industry keep up with burgeoning storage requirements, particularly from video surveillance applications?
According to estimates from Seagate, it would take more than 18 million TB of storage to support currently deployed surveillance cameras for a 14-day recording period. The number of hard drives required for this storage capacity would stretch across China twice if laid end to end.
These statistics underscore the staggering growth of surveillance and storage technologies over the past 15 years. Increased capacities, improved performance and lower costs in storage technology are driving growth in global camera shipments. Research from In-Stat forecasts more than 51 million camera shipments by 2014. Furthermore, IMS Research expects more than 70 percent of network cameras will be of megapixel resolution by 2015, requiring at least four times the amount of storage than analog cameras used today (according to Supercircuits/Observint Technologies). For the storage industry, more cameras + higher resolutions = increased storage needs.
To meet growing storage requirements, drive manufacturers must help maintain data integrity while improving areal density. Breakthroughs in track density — how closely tracks of data are arranged on a drive — are becoming particularly important stepping stones toward increased capacities.
For example, Seagate SV35 Series hard drives now have up to 3TB of capacity, enabling up to 42 days of high-quality video recording (1,280x1,024 at 30 fps, H.264-compressed video) and making them ideal for DVR configurations with multiple camera inputs. SV35 Series drives boast 340,000 tracks per inch, making each track only 75 nanometers wide, which is smaller than a single flu virus.
Seagate also leveraged this technology on its Pipeline HD video-optimized drives and Constellation ES enterprise drives to help surveillance systems meet capacity needs. Pipeline HD drives support low camera counts and power requirements and can be found in capacities up to 2 TB. System operators who demand high camera counts and centralized storage may benefit from Constellation ES drives. With capacities up to 4TB, these enterprise-class drives ensure performance and reliability for centralized storage.
The video surveillance industry continues to grow at astounding rates, as do its storage needs. As hard drive manufacturers develop technologies to maximize data capacity, storage will remain a critical element in surveillance solutions.
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