FujiFilm: Online Video Surveillance Retention Cost Calculator

FujiFilm Recording Media USA., Inc. announced an online calculator designed to help video surveillance (VS) industry professionals assess the TCO for long-term retention of video surveillance content.

Today’s low-cost, high-resolution cameras – combined with longer-term retention requirements – are driving video content storage costs upwards across the VS industry and leading many to take a new look at their storage strategy.

Developed by storage economics experts Brad Johns Consultingg LLC, and sponsored by the company, the decision-making tool allows users to input the specs of their system — such as number of cameras, camera type, frame rate, resolution, retention period requirements, motion percentage, and duration of time for keeping footage in tier-1 HDD storage or tier-2 tape storage. With these inputs, the calculator instantly weighs the variables and projects a 5-year cost comparison of using HDD only, or a combination of HDD with an integrated LTO tape technology tier.

“FujiFilm is excited about this opportunity to help video surveillance professionals calculate the real savings they can achieve by implementing a second tier of storage based on tape with LTO technology,” says Rich Gadomski, head, tape evangelism, FujiFilm Recording Media USA. “Using the real world parameters of their surveillance systems, they can quickly and easily see the direct results on their bottom line.“

Establishing cost savings case for integrating tape (12TB LTO-8 cartridges), users with even modest retention requirements will typically find a 50% potential annual savings compared to disk alone. Those savings only increase with higher data volumes and longer retention times. Moving footage from disk to the tape tier sooner also drives costs down.

“In addition to lower cost, other quality and environmental factors are driving more surveillance industry professionals to consider storage tape with LTO technology,” adds Gadomski. “Tape leads all storage media in reliability, with a bit error rate ,ter than disk. And when compared to constantly-spinning HDDs, tape’s low energy consumption not only drives costs down, but reduces carbon footprint as well.“

Today’s LTO technology is also becoming more operator-friendly. New video management software solutions, such as Cozaint Corp.‘s askALICE, are designed to playback video from either tier-1 disk storage or tier-2 tape without any additional steps needed by the surveillance timeline operator.