Hard Drive Recommendations

ahallada
ahallada
edited March 2025 in General

I've been using various HDs for the last 12 years. Mostly WD HDD in the 4-16TB range and they seem to be good for only a few years before they fail. I started using a SSD about 2 years ago and have been pretty happy with it so far with another security software. SSD are pretty inexpensive right now too. But I just switched back to Security Spy last week and wanted to know what external drives play best with it. I only have 256GB for internal drive SSD so that is out of the question.

Thanks for the help.

Allen


I just found Ben's recommendations on the Security Spy forum. I'll stick with SSD.

Comments

  • ahallada
    ahallada
    edited March 2025

    My current config:

    Apple Mac Pro, 3.5GHz Intel Xeon E5 Six Core, 16GB RAM, Dual AMD FirePro D500 Graphics, 256GB SSD, Black, MD878LL/A


    I'm looking to upgrade to a Mac Mini M4 this spring.

  • Ben
    Ben

    If budget allows, and your storage requirements aren't too high, go for an SSD. In general you can expect far better performance, reliability, and longevity with an SSD compared to a HDD. If you need to go for an HDD, check out the Backblaze drive stats - they publish regular reports about failure rates of specific models. The difference between the worst and the best drives is huge.

    As you say, prices of SSDs have come down significantly, and will certainly keep on this trajectory. Go for a recognised brand such as Samsung / Crucial / WD / SanDisk. External drive enclosures vary a lot in quality too - if possible, get a self-contained unit so that you don't have to worry about choosing an enclosure separately. If you need an enclosure, OWC and Sabrent are respected brands. We have also had good success with UGREEN enclosures - they seem to be a reliable budget brand.

  • ahallada
    ahallada

    Thanks Ben. I’ll stick with SSD for now. I appreciate the feedback.

    Allen

  • jpelura3
    jpelura3

    I'm in the market for a larger drive. I've been reading that an HDD is better than an SSD because SSD's weren't made for constant re-writing when using video. Is that true? I'm looking at the Western Digital 4TB WD Purple Surveillance Internal Hard Drive HDD.

    Right now I'm justing using the stock drive on an old iMac 19,1 with decent performance.

  • Ben
    Ben

    SSDs have a limited number of write cycles, usually specified by the manufacturer as a TBW rating "Terabytes Written". This tells you how much data can be written to the drive in total before you have to worry about its physical NAND cells degrading.

    For modern SSD drives this number is high, and for typical retention periods of CCTV footage (e.g. 4 weeks), this will give you a lifespan of several decades - far longer than your typical HDD.

    So, SSD is always the better choice if budget allows, due to its superior performance, reliability and (in this case) longevity.

    If you do go for a HDD, get a LaCie d2 pre-filled with a disk (they use quality HDDs), or if you're going for a separate drive/enclosure, stick to this specific list:

    • Western Digital Ultrastar / Gold / Red Pro
    • Seagate IronWolf / Exos / BarraCuda Pro

    WD Purple is probably fine - it's designed for video surveillance and has reasonable reviews, but the drives listed above should be superior.

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