Best surveillance hard drives
Surveillance is a relentless write workload - a dozen camera streams recording around the clock, almost never reading back. Purpose-built drives (WD Purple, Seagate SkyHawk) tune their firmware for continuous sequential writes and many simultaneous streams, where a plain desktop drive would start dropping frames.
The list below is the surveillance-class drives in our catalog.
| Drive | Capacity | Tech | Class | Interface | AFR | C$/TB | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
ST24000VE002 Seagate SkyHawk AI
|
24 TB | CMR | Surveillance | SATA | - | C$49.58 | C$1,190 |
| 2 |
WD221PURP WD Purple Pro
|
22 TB | CMR | Surveillance | SATA | - | - | - |
| 3 |
ST20000VE002 Seagate SkyHawk AI
|
20 TB | CMR | Surveillance | SATA | - | C$39.35 | C$787 |
| 4 |
WD181PURP WD Purple Pro
|
18 TB | CMR | Surveillance | SATA | - | C$50.38 | C$907 |
| 5 |
ST18000VE002 Seagate SkyHawk AI
|
18 TB | CMR | Surveillance | SATA | - | - | - |
| 6 |
ST16000VE002 Seagate SkyHawk AI
|
16 TB | CMR | Surveillance | SATA | - | C$53.12 | C$850 |
| 7 |
WD141PURP WD Purple Pro
|
14 TB | CMR | Surveillance | SATA | - | C$73.07 | C$1,023 |
| 8 |
WD121PURP WD Purple Pro
|
12 TB | CMR | Surveillance | SATA | - | C$60.83 | C$730 |
| 9 |
ST12000VE003 Seagate SkyHawk AI
|
12 TB | CMR | Surveillance | SATA | - | C$66.43 | C$797 |
| 10 |
WD101PURP WD Purple Pro
|
10 TB | CMR | Surveillance | SATA | - | C$72.00 | C$720 |
Ranked by measured failure rate (Backblaze AFR). $/TB uses the cheapest live price where available.
What makes a surveillance drive different
Built for constant writes
An NVR writes nonstop and reads almost nothing. Surveillance firmware - WD's AllFrame, Seagate's ImagePerfect - is tuned to keep those sustained writes flowing without dropping frames, even with a dozen streams landing at once.
Stream and bay ratings
These drives are rated for a specific number of simultaneous HD streams and a maximum bay count. Match those numbers to your camera count and recorder size; a drive rated for 64 streams is wasted on a 4-camera setup, and an underrated one will choke on a big install.
Capacity is retention
Retention length drives capacity more than anything else. Take your per-camera bitrate, multiply by camera count and the days you want to keep, then add headroom for motion spikes. The drives above span the capacities most NVR builds land on.
Frequently asked questions
- Can I use a normal NAS drive for surveillance?
- You can, and NAS drives handle it well, but surveillance-class drives are tuned specifically for the constant write load and many simultaneous camera streams of an NVR, and often support more drive bays and cameras per drive.
- How much storage do I need for security cameras?
- It depends on resolution, frame rate, compression and how many days you retain. As a rough guide, a single 1080p camera at moderate settings uses ~1-2TB per month of continuous recording; 4K cameras use much more.
- Are surveillance drives CMR or SMR?
- Most surveillance drives are CMR, which suits sustained sequential writes. Always confirm the specific model - our drive pages list the recording technology.