Western Digital 18TB 3.5-Inch Purple HDD and 1TB Purple SC QD101 microSD Card for Surveillance

Enabling customers to design and build solutions for a variety of video workloads, Western Digital Corp. expanded family of Purple storage solutions, including 18TB^(*)surveillance HDD for DVRs, NVRs and analytics appliances, and t1TB^(*)Purple SC QD101 microSD card for AI-enabled cameras.

All the Purple drives are optimized to help reduce frame loss and pixelation, improve overall video playback and enhance streaming for 24×7 workloads – from ingest to backup and long-term storage – as the industry broadens the use of deep learning and analytics.

From commercial buildings to municipalities, businesses are accelerating adoption of AI and deep learning to enable automation and better efficiencies that help create a safer and better experience for employees, customers and communities. Deep learning algorithms, hungry for data generated by IoT and edge ecosystems, demand higher resolution for better accuracy, increasing the need for storage capacity in cameras and NVRs. In its recent report, Video Surveillance and Analytics Intelligence Service, July 2020, Omdia states that shipments of cameras enabled with deep learning algorithms will continue growing at a 5-year (2019-2024) CAGR of 67%, and NVRs enabled with deep-learning analytics will grow at 37%. Meanwhile, video analytics appliances shipments are expected to grow at 43%. In addition, a 2020 Western Digital-commissioned survey of North American security system integration companies found that 76% of them see video analytics and AI as playing an increasing role in their deployments.

Beyond hardware
The company’s HDD firmware optimizations and data management capabilities for its Purple drives play a critical role in improving system capabilities as well as managing devices across AI-enabled smart video solutions. The combination helps improve performance, reliability, durability and overall better operational efficiency and TCO for customers. The firm’s AllFrame technology for Purple HDDs delivers caching and streaming management techniques to help prevent data loss and keep up with ongoing stream management. The company’s Device Analytics, a software-based solution for the firm’s HDDs, provides monitoring and drive analysis to users, enabling them to detect problematic conditions on a drive and provides instructions for remediation before an issue occurs.

Purple 18TB 3.5-inch HDD
The Purple 18TB HDD is designed for NVRs and video analytics appliances as well as GPU-enabled devices that can deliver real-time and post analytics applications. Offering 28% more capacity than the previous gen, this drive has room to spare for storing video, reference images and metadata at the edge, to support more effective AI. Purple drives from 8TB to 18TB feature AllFrame AI technology that enables recording of up to 64 high-definition cameras, as well as an additional 32 streams for deep learning analytics.

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Purple SC QD101 1TB microSD card
This card is designed for AI-enabled cameras, surveillance cameras and edge devices, serving as primary or backup storage. It is based on the company’s 96-layer 3D NAND technology, and delivers a combination of high endurance with up to 500P/E cycles and comes in 1TB, 512, 256, 128, 64 and 32GB capacities^(*). Rugged and durable, the card is weather resistant, humidity resistant and can withstand temperatures from -25°C to 85°C. In compatible cameras, the card health monitor provides installers and integrators with the ability to gauge the remaining endurance and preemptively service the card if needed.

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The Purple 18TB HDD will be available in October 2020, and the Purple SC QD101 1TB microSD card is expected to be available in November 2020.

“The new WD Purple drives are uniquely designed for the demands of edge and analytics security video appliances that will enable our customers to gain more insights from their visual data,” said Tim Palmquist, VP, Americas, Milestone Systems. “As a leading developer of open and independent IP video surveillance platforms, we value our relationship with Western Digital and are pleased to be working together to provide storage that can support AI and deep learning, as well as manage multiple streams as video resolutions rise.“

“Leading the charge for the digital transformation of physical security for our customers worldwide, we count on strategic partners such as Western Digital to deliver reliable and high performing storage solutions,” said Martin Renkis, GM, global cloud solutions physical security, Johnson Controls. “Every Tyco Cloud video surveillance solution runs on WD Purple today as it has for many years. As we continue to innovate with features such as cloud-based storage health monitoring and alerts, we will continue to count on Western Digital to deliver the advanced solutions our customers need. We make the world a safer place with Western Digital technology.“

Eric Spanneut, VP, client computing and smart video business, Western Digital, said: “Working side-by-side with our customers and ecosystem partners gives us unique insights and focus on delivering solutions that are optimized for the most advanced security video workloads. AI is driving the need for more enhanced capabilities in drives to keep up with performance demands, especially as video resolution and the number of incoming streams increase. We are in a unique position as the combination of our software and expanding drive portfolio makes our solutions ideal for deployment into a multitude of smart video applications.“

Purpose-built portfolio of offerings
The Purple family adds to the company’s portfolio of HDD and SSD solutions purpose-built for a variety of market needs. These include the 6TB and 18TB WD Red Pro HDDs for SMB NAS applications (It’s Here! RedPro 16 and 18TB for growing productivity); the enterprise 16TB and 18TB WD Gold HDDs; Gold NVMe SSDs; Black solutions that meet the demands of gamers; as well as Blue and Green SSDs to boost the computing experience.^(*) These solutions are available at select firm’s distributors, retailers, e-tailers, resellers, system integrators, and the firm’s digital store.

^(*) As used for storage capacity, 1GB=one billion bytes and 1TB=one trillion bytes. Actual user capacity may be less depending on operating environment.

Resources:
Blog: How is AI Clearing the Vision of Smart Video?
Blog: With WD Purple microSD Cards, Security Cameras Endure an AI and 4K Future
Blog: Ready for the Rise of the Smart Fleets
Blog: Sustaining a Sustainability Company With World-Class Surveillance