Hard Drive setup for NVR

[Gadget -X]

Purchased a Dahua NVR-5216-4KS2. Looking at WD Purple surveillance hard drives. Looking at a single 10TB or pair of 6TB drives. Is there any performance improvement with 2 drives? If not probably going with a single since I am thinking it would be quieter.

Thank you for any thoughts...

M

 

[foghat]

I can't see there being any noise or performance differences 1 vs. 2 drives, as I suspect the nvr is only writing to one drive at a time. I'd go with the biggest single drive you can afford and then add another at a later date if necessary.

 

[Trax95008]

My advice has 2 parts.

1: get the largest drive the NVR will support. Storage is cheap up front, but expensive when you realize you need more storage and have to replace a drive later.

2: yes there is an advantage to having 2 drives. There should be an option to allow the hard drives to “sleep” which means the drive that isn’t being written to will sleep (stop spinning) this will greatly extend the life of the drives.

 

[foghat]

My advice has 2 parts.

2: yes there is an advantage to having 2 drives. There should be an option to allow the hard drives to “sleep” which means the drive that isn’t being written to will sleep (stop spinning) this will greatly extend the life of the drives.

In and of itself, how is this an advantage over a single drive? Whether you have one drive or 2, you are always going to have a drive that is constantly being written to (assuming 24/7 recording).

 

[Trax95008]

In and of itself, how is this an advantage over a single drive? Whether you have one drive or 2, you are always going to have a drive that is constantly being written to (assuming 24/7 recording).

And what’s the other drive doing...

 

[foghat]

And what’s the other drive doing...

And what is the empty drive bay doing in a single drive setup?

Maybe I am reading your point 2 incorrectly, but it sounds like you are saying an advantage to having 2 drives (over a single drive) is that you can put the second drive to sleep. While I see that as beneficial, I do not see how that is an advantage to a single drive setup - again, in and of itself.

 

[Trax95008]

The advantage is reliability from a maintenance standpoint. A drive that is allowed to sleep half the time, will end up more than doubling its life. (Less chance of a failure) I understand that the OP was asking about performance and my advice was more “general”, but it was meant as “good practice” advice, or “something to consider”

 

[foghat]

Hmmm. Interesting point. As long as it is only sleeping and waking up infrequently - I assume that the one drive sleeps until the first one is full and the drives are not 'randomly' being written to.

 

[Trax95008]

No, it is not random at all! They take turns filling the drive. If you have 2 weeks of footage, that would mean that each drive sleeps for a week at a time. The drive only wakes when it’s that drives turn to use, or if you enter “playback” in the NVR the drive will wake to access the footage on it.