One or Two HDD's for new Dahua NVR5216-16P

[ScooterGeo]

This may be a dumb question:

Is it better to have 2 smaller drives or 1 larger drive (i.e. 2x 2TB vs 1x 4TB) in an NVR.
I was wondering if there is an advantage to to recording 1/2 the cameras on one drive and 1/2 on the other or just use one larger drive.
My initial system will have 5x 2MP cameras and 1 4K.

I don't see any real advantage performance wise as the hardware will have plenty of headroom for such a small set up regardless.

The cost per TB is better with larger drives as is the overall energy efficiency in terms of power draw and heat output per TB with larger drives.

I can get 2x 2TB WD purples for $200 CAD or 1x 4TB for $150 CAD.

My initial thought is that 1x 4TB is adequate and leaves one bay open to add a 2nd drive later.

I searched the forum and couldn't find any definitive answer.

Thanks in advance.

 

[mat200]

This may be a dumb question:

Is it better to have 2 smaller drives or 1 larger drive (i.e. 2x 2TB vs 1x 4TB) in an NVR.
I was wondering if there is an advantage to to recording 1/2 the cameras on one drive and 1/2 on the other or just use one larger drive.
My initial system will have 5x 2MP cameras and 1 4K.

I don't see any real advantage performance wise as the hardware will have plenty of headroom for such a small set up regardless.

The cost per TB is better with larger drives as is the overall energy efficiency in terms of power draw and heat output per TB with larger drives.

I can get 2x 2TB WD purples for $200 CAD or 1x 4TB for $150 CAD.

My initial thought is that 1x 4TB is adequate and leaves one bay open to add a 2nd drive later.

I searched the forum and couldn't find any definitive answer.

Thanks in advance.

Hi @ScooterGeo

The WD purple HDDs are fairly reliable if you keep the NVR in a good ambient environment, so I would go with the best cost per TB w/1 HDD for now.

2TB HDD imho are no longer the best option for mass storage.

 

[ScooterGeo]

Hi @ScooterGeo

The WD purple HDDs are fairly reliable if you keep the NVR in a good ambient environment, so I would go with the best cost per TB w/1 HDD for now.

2TB HDD imho are no longer the best option for mass storage.

Thanks Mat, I was thinking of just a single 4TB for now or perhaps a 6TB. I may run a Seagate SkyHawk (much to your chagrin) as that is what is currently available locally. I remember you noting that the Seagates had some poor reliability issues, not sure if the AFR has improved since. I did check BackBlaze stats and except for one batch they didn't seem to think they were horrible. I really don't know.

Cheers

 

[IAmATeaf]

I would go with a large single drive for now. Also don’t most NVR boxes RAID the drives together into a single volume so you wouldn’t have direct control over which drive which camera records to.

 

[bigredfish]

^^^^^
This

I like (2) 4TB WD Purple drives as a starter.