I. The rapid development of intelligent security accelerates the transformation of video storage
So far, China’s security surveillance systems have mainly gone through four stages: analog, digital, networked, and intelligent. At each of these stages, different types of surveillance data storage systems have emerged, from early VCRs to DVRs, hybrid DVRs to NVRs, and SAN storage networks.
With the large-scale deployment of high-definition and networked video surveillance systems in the current phase, intelligent storage servers have appeared to deliver higher-quality video images and more accurate intelligent data analysis and mining.
Due to the characteristics of video surveillance systems—such as numerous monitoring points, multiple recording channels, long monitoring durations, and large volumes of video data—video storage technology faces a major challenge: how to provide sufficient storage space for massive amounts of video data files.
In large-scale high-definition video surveillance applications, storing vast amounts of high-definition video data—such as that from 720P, 1080P, 5MP, and 8MP high-resolution IPCs—poses significant performance challenges to storage due to high concurrency and large-stream real-time data read/write operations.
Furthermore, as more surveillance applications demand high-definition video display, massive data storage, diverse information integration, intelligent information mining, and large-scale data analysis and decision-making, the need for large-scale high-definition video data storage systems in safe cities, smart cities, and cross-regional industrial applications points to the necessity of enhanced data storage capacity and computing performance. Storage products must feature high performance, high capacity, high reliability, and scalability, while also integrating deeply with surveillance system applications to meet the special operational requirements of video data management.
In terms of video monitoring, moving from manual image surveillance and data analysis to intelligent real-time video analytics using smart analysis technologies enables detailed analysis of high-definition video quality and the intelligent mining of similar features and behavior data, providing precise data support for event decision-making and business analysis.
Traditional mechanical hard drives are not suitable for the development needs of the security surveillance field. First, under applications such as massive data storage, cloud storage, artificial intelligence, and smart analysis, the required speed for sequential and random read/write operations far exceeds the performance of traditional mechanical hard drives. Secondly, long working hours and harsh operating environments are major challenges for standard hard drives.
This brings us to a crucial component of modern storage—SSD solid-state drives and related storage technologies. As one of the most important devices in a security surveillance system, SSDs are responsible for data storage and data security. One of the most prominent features of SSDs is their shock and drop resistance, which far surpasses that of traditional hard drives.
II. Intelligent surveillance imposes new demands on hard disk storage
✅ Hard drives must adapt to the read/write and durability characteristics of video surveillance applications
With the construction of large-scale projects such as Safe City in China, prolonged manual real-time monitoring has led to “blind spots,” requiring image analysis technologies like facial recognition to assist in data screening at the edge end. The increasing complexity of AI applications poses a challenge to the random data read/write performance of storage devices.
Therefore, the control firmware of hard drives must be optimized to allocate cache more efficiently so that video data from different cameras can be quickly and seamlessly written to the disk. Other considerations include whether the surveillance video storage hard disk has enough cache, how many HD cameras it can support, and whether the annual workload parameters meet the required specifications.
✅ Hard drives must have anti-vibration features and be designed for harsh operating environments
As 5G, artificial intelligence, and security merge and public safety demands increase, the security field is evolving, and video surveillance plays an extremely important role in modern security systems.
Video surveillance hard drives are typically installed in NCR/DVR, NAS, or external disk array slots. Since hard drives generate vibrations during operation, these vibrations can accumulate in multi-drive environments, affecting read/write accuracy. In severe cases, this can lead to errors in data writing or even damage to recorded data.
SSDs are primarily composed of electronic semiconductor devices, which give them the characteristics of electronic products: high speed, shock and vibration resistance, low power consumption, silent operation, low heat generation, fast startup, wide temperature range, compact size, long lifespan, and high reliability.
Today, the rapid growth of big data is driving the transformation and advancement of storage technologies. According to IHS Markit’s forecast, in the coming years, the growth of 4K and high-resolution network cameras will place higher demands on surveillance-grade storage to support systems already utilizing these technologies.
As the main driver of future storage applications, SSDs have already been incorporated into public safety video surveillance application standards. Moreover, the rapid growth of data volume in China is pushing the country toward storage technology transformation and advancement. The eventual replacement of mechanical hard drives by SSDs is an inevitable trend.
III. Application of SSD technology in the security industry
Previously, all content was stored directly on NVRs and DVRs. As security systems have been upgraded, single-level storage can no longer meet the industry’s development needs. Broadly speaking, the surveillance field can be divided into three application scenarios: independent applications, applications combined with HDDs, and cloud-integrated applications.
The first category involves surveillance devices used by small businesses—independent application scenarios. In these scenarios, if the installed cameras only record without storing, the setup is meaningless. Therefore, storage is added to the camera terminal to save the footage. These applications have lower performance requirements for storage cards—meeting basic capacity needs is sufficient.
The second category includes applications in public safety or professional video surveillance. These require multiple cameras connected to NVRs (Network Video Recorders) or DVRs (Digital Video Recorders). Currently, data backup is performed at the camera end, ensuring that even if the NVR or DVR experiences a network outage or unpredictable risk, data loss is avoided.
The third category involves cloud integration, where cameras are connected directly to the cloud, enabling AI-based analysis. This scenario is suitable for small and medium-sized enterprises needing centralized management or large companies with geographically dispersed branches.
In typical surveillance scenarios, systems generate large volumes of video data and small amounts of log data per second, along with the need to randomly retrieve video data for playback. Therefore, SSDs must maintain high-speed steady-state write speeds while quickly responding to random read operations of video data.
Consumer-grade SSD firmware is mainly designed to meet everyday storage needs, and cannot handle the high data volume read/write model required by 24/7 surveillance. This often results in significant fluctuations in write speed. A common failure is dropped frames in recorded footage, which leads to loss of critical data—an unacceptable issue in security surveillance.
SSD technology, with its fast read/write speeds, shock and vibration resistance, low power consumption, silent operation, low heat generation, compactness, and other advantages, is far more suited to 4K HD video, multi-channel concurrent storage without frame loss, fast random access for big data cloud storage, AI-based applications, facial and license plate recognition image searches, and quick, accurate matching—advantages that traditional HDDs cannot match. SSDs are poised to thrive amid the next wave of technological transformation.
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