How long will the HDD last?

[LL0rd]

Hey guys,

I have a question about HDDs and NVRs. In my case, we have a Hikvision NVR in our house. It's in the office of the security. Connected are 16 digital Coax Cameras and 2 IP Cameras. In the NVR is one HDD. But I think it's a Surveillance HDD, not just a regular one. It's a 2TB drive.

The installation in the house is really bad. With low light conditions the cameras begin to flicker. So in most cases they record all night long. The HDD contains videos of about 4 Days, so in my opinion the every 4 Days 2 TB are written to the HDD.

I looked up, what Seagate write about their drives, for example the ST2000VX008. It has a MTBF of 1.000.000 hours and a Workload Rate Limit of 180 TB/year. 2TB every 4 Day are roundabout 180TB a year. What's the realistic expectation for a life span of such a drive?

To be honest with you, I have myself a Storage Server in a Data Center. In the Server are 24 Drives. The drives are Seagate Exos drives. And nearly every 3-4 Month I have a failing Drive. And the workload of the Machine is far away from the 180TB/year.

The NVR is now about a year old, is in a small office with a smoking security and turned from Snow-White to smoking yellow. What do you think, how long will the HDD in the NVR last? Or the NVR itself?

 

[bp2008]

Particularly if it is a surveillance drive, it is designed for lots of continuous writing. So it should last for the warranty period plus one day.

HDD failures are impossible to guess. Trends suggest that the longer they survive, the longer they are likely to survive (e.g. if they don't die in the first year or two, they'll likely last a lot longer). If you have frequent failures in a system, you should look at temperature and vibration and possible factors contributing to the reduced lifespan.

 

[LL0rd]

Particularly if it is a surveillance drive, it is designed for lots of continuous writing. So it should last for the warranty period plus one day.

Well, the warranty period of the drive is 3 Years. And normally the drive is just the same as a regular drive with similar capacity. But the firmware is a little bit different. But I doubt, that one small drive was designed to take this kind of load. 18 Data Streams is in my opinion a heavy load for one drive.

 

[garycrist]

They, as you know, work till they click.
Usually my NVRs last for about 4 years or so, till the whole system is replaced.

 

[LL0rd]

They, as you know, work till they click.
Usually my NVRs last for about 4 years or so, till the whole system is replaced.

Till they click? I don't think so. It's more like that the HDD is worn down. Bad sectors will appear, e.g.
Well, I tried to look up, what HDD is inside the NVR but I have no idea. At least it's 270 days running. I really hope that the NVR won't last very long. And I can replace it with.... Everything is better than this NVR

 

[samplenhold]

All I have info on is the WD 10TB disks that I have been using since 2018. I have three installed in my BI server and each holds about 2-3 weeks of data. These are the WD101PURZ drives. Not had any issue with them at all.

They support up to 64 cameras each, I have 7-8 cams writing to each. MTBF is 1,500,000 which I will never reach. Three year warranty which is gone now.

Annualized workload rating is 360TB/yr. So do I reach that? The 2-3 weeks of data that each holds equates to about 10TB every 2 1/2 weeks. That comes out to about 208TB/yr. So I guess I am OK on the workload.

The point is that these drives will probably last many years if they do not fail right away. The key is keeping them cool, dry, and clean.

 

[Parley]

I just replaced a couple WD Purple drives and I would say they lasted 5 years or maybe a little more. They are the first ones I bought when I got into surveillance cameras.

 

[mat200]

Hey guys,

I have a question about HDDs and NVRs. In my case, we have a Hikvision NVR in our house. It's in the office of the security. Connected are 16 digital Coax Cameras and 2 IP Cameras. In the NVR is one HDD. But I think it's a Surveillance HDD, not just a regular one. It's a 2TB drive.

The installation in the house is really bad. With low light conditions the cameras begin to flicker. So in most cases they record all night long. The HDD contains videos of about 4 Days, so in my opinion the every 4 Days 2 TB are written to the HDD.

I looked up, what Seagate write about their drives, for example the ST2000VX008. It has a MTBF of 1.000.000 hours and a Workload Rate Limit of 180 TB/year. 2TB every 4 Day are roundabout 180TB a year. What's the realistic expectation for a life span of such a drive?

To be honest with you, I have myself a Storage Server in a Data Center. In the Server are 24 Drives. The drives are Seagate Exos drives. And nearly every 3-4 Month I have a failing Drive. And the workload of the Machine is far away from the 180TB/year.

The NVR is now about a year old, is in a small office with a smoking security and turned from Snow-White to smoking yellow. What do you think, how long will the HDD in the NVR last? Or the NVR itself?

Hi @LL0rd

remember it also depends on the environment .. power, heat, humidity, ..

example of a report from BackBlaze ..

Backblaze Drive Stats for Q1 2023

Read the Q1 2023 Drive Stats report, and join the conversation in the comments.

www.backblaze.com

note:
“It’s a Trap”
" .. most of the larger sized drive models are still in operation and therefore they “haven’t finished failing yet.” In other words, as these larger drives continue to fail over the coming months and years, they could increase or decrease the average failure age of that drive model."

Thus .. this is incomplete still ..

 

[LL0rd]

remember it also depends on the environment .. power, heat, humidity, ..

Well... I can't say very much about the environment, because I have no actual Data on it. Current Temperature was about 23°C that is ok. Most of my other drives at home are above.

I think the smoking will also kill the drive or the NVR. Just take a look. The NVR was snow white. If the HDD is 270 Days Old, then the NVR is also that old.