CCTV hard drive advice

Sunshine_and_Roses

I bought the following cctv system for home:

SANNCE 8CH Channel 1080N DVR CCTV Camera System Surveillance Kit w/ 4x 720P HD Outdoor Day Night Vision Fixed Bullet Cameras No HDD Hard Drive Included, HDMI Output, Easy Mobile Access

I wrongly thought that I could record on an external hard drive, so I need to purchase an internal one. They recommend :

SANNCE Professional DVR/NVR 1TB Surveillance Hard Drive, 3.5-Inch Internal Bare Drive for Security Camera System

but this seems a lot of money at £62.99 , when this (smaller memory) is only £17.99:

Sonnics 750gb 3.5" SATA CCTV Camera CCTV System DVR Surveillance Storage Hard Drive

Are these easy to install, do I need to buy a Sannce or would the cheap one be ok?

that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL4cNhvOTM0

Sunshine_and_Roses

Thats brilliant, thank you. Do you know if the cheaper hard drive would be ok or do I need to pay for the branded one?

that

the video showed a standard green Western digital 500aws drive.

the company could have got smart and changed the menu, or put a pin/password on it by now?

Neil_Jones

The bigger the hard drive the longer recording time it holds. If you record every frame from 4 cameras I think 1 Tb drive only lasts about 12 days before it starts overwriting the oldest footage. Not that you need to record all 25fps every second, you can quite easily get away with 5fps, that would effectively quadruple the recording storage time (in theory anyway).

These CCTV systems take any standard 3.5" drive so you could get away with a standard PC desktop one. They're not ultimately designed for them but they'll work. However CCTV drives (like the Western Digital Purple series and the Seagate Skyhawk series) are quite expensive for what they are.

Sunshine_and_Roses

Thanks all. Have gone for the cheap one, will see what thats like when it arrives tomorrow. Get ready for daft questions again!!

bengalknights

Just make sure its a surveillance HD, basically with the constant writes you want it to be slow spinning, alot of normal drives being fast spinning fail due to the constant read/write.

benje302

The Western Digital Purple range are often recommended for surveillance hard drives.

forgotmyname

A standard drive will work fine but dont expect it to last as long as the correct drive rated for CCTV use.

750GB drive for £18? Is that a used item or a 1TB drive with 250GB of bad sectors?

benje302

As others have mentioned, you are best to buy a surveillance hard drive. These drives spin slower and are all about the write speed and will be spinning 24*7. The best drives to have are either WD Purple or Seagate SkyHawk. These are around £60 - 65 for either one for a 2 TB drive.
Hope this helps


Ben