Do I really need a surveillance disk drive for this?

[Torn Mind]

I am thinking of buying this surveillance system from Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16881147043
So, yeah, will this thing be fine with a regular hard drive? With a maximum of only four cameras, I feel that a regular 7200 rpm drive won't be over taxed, would it?

 

[PhIlLy ChEeSe]

Yes

 

[Charlie98]

No, it won't be overtaxed, but the AV drives are optimized for 24/7 video recording. I have a WD Green AV drive (now the Purple drive) with something like 25K hours on it and it's never had a problem. The difference is, assuming you have it recording 24 hours a day... it's designed for that, not just occasional writes, etc, and very little reading.

My system is 4 cameras as well, but I just installed an 8 camera Swann unit for my inlaws, and it came with a nice, 2TB Seagate surveillance drive. For what you are spending on that unit, you might consider something like a Swann... that already comes with the HDD.

 

[Torn Mind]

Newegg has a $45 promo code discount on the DVR system, making it $85. The cameras are garbage 1/4" CMOS, though. Then again, that is far better than the $500 Defender system Home Depot was selling over a year ago with practically the same stuff, which has since been discontinued for better resolution cams. If I need better cams, an extra purchase is necessary anyway.

I intend to use motion detection more than continuous record. Watching the front door of rentals for guests and kitchen use by tenants are probably the most likely events I will be recording.

Or catching the city inspector snoops in the residence I reside in.

As an aside, what I hate about these dedicated DVRs is the obscure file formats for the backup files.

 

[Coup27]

You should use an AV drive. I forget where I read this now but it was on a white paper from one of the major HDD manufacturers that normal SATA drives are only "rated" for 8 hours of operation per day. Now obviously many people run them 24/7 but how long a nornal drive will last in a DVR nobody will tell you. Not only is a Purple drive designed to be on 24/7 it's also designed to write 24/7, although with motion recording it might be less intense.

Regarding the file formats, it's my understanding that they are formatted the way they are to prevent tampering. I spoke to a tech guy at the company who made works DVR and when you burn the footage it also burns a proprietary media player and embeds a watermark. In the player you can validate the watermark and it will return "this video has not been tampered with". For legal reasons a court will only accept footage provided in this format. I can download a .avi from the network software but this would not be accepted.

 

[Charlie98]

Just FYI, and I'm not trying to spend your money, mind you... but you get what you pay for. I picked the Swann unit after fairly extensive research (for me, anyway.) The Swann unit was (is) the best supported unit, with better cameras and a fairly easy to navigate GUI. Downloading the files to your PC, and using the Swann software to review (you can do it on the console, too, if you have a monitor connected) is quite easy. I've had to download video segments for the police, took me about 15 minutes.

My older unit is very good (a 3-year old 4-camera system,) the system I bought for my inlaws is so much better... a new 8-camera system, 1080p, 2TB HDD, includes 4 waaaay better cameras, and the new Swann GUI... along with PC and smart phone support. I can pull up my inlaws front porch, for example, in 10 seconds on my iPhone, and navigate the footage from there. Silly thing... it cost the same as mine did 3 years ago and is easily twice the system.

 

[Torn Mind]

You got the model number for your Swann? I would like to see the reviews and manual.

And yeah, it seems like only recently they started phasing in these newer camera systems.

 

[Cerb]

Probably not, but they are certainly cheap enough.

The WD Surveillance drives, Purples, are like Reds, but support a streaming command extension set, which may or may not be used on some DVRs (I haven't seen any mention it, to date, but maybe high-end ones do). Seagate's are probably similar, but last I looked, they had even more vague documentation than WD's.

IIRC, the old "AV" drives just don't bother doing added error checking, even into just a few seconds, so that they don't stop activity on a bad sector.

 

[Phynaz]

I beleive the surveillance drives also do not do thermal calibration, so there will not be any video dropouts from that.

 

[Charlie98]

You got the model number for your Swann? I would like to see the reviews and manual.

And yeah, it seems like only recently they started phasing in these newer camera systems.

At MicroCenter.... The one review is mine.

My previous system is outdated, and, as I stated in my MC review, I plan to replace it with this newer system this summer. I'll take my 4 old cameras, move them to the rear of the property, and put the new ones out front. The included cameras with the new system have far greater IR capability than my current ones, it makes it worth it... plus the 2TB storage. Yes, the specs say 1TB, mine came with a 2TB...