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HDD usage advice

Recommended HDD configuration for MyVMS IP

One of the MyVMS archive engine features is the ability to assign parallel camera recording to different disks.

The archive engine allows you to:

  1. organize software RAID similar to RAID 0;
  2. set archive depth for different cameras or camera groups;
  3. configure camera recording priority.

It is recommended to assign a maximum of 16 cameras to one physical disk drive with a total recording stream of no more than 250 Mbps. The system also allows configurations where each camera has a separate HDD for recording.

The same camera and recording source cannot be assigned to different groups. The program uses cyclic video recording: when disk space runs out, the program starts writing new data over old data. If several archive folders are assigned to a group, they will be filled sequentially.

HDD parameter selection

When choosing an HDD, it is important to consider continuous 24/7 operation and the mixed workload typical for video surveillance archives. Archive disks may handle continuous recording, random archive playback, search operations, and video export at the same time. This does not mean that only specialized surveillance drives can be used. Hard drives should be selected according to their technical characteristics rather than by brand.

  1. Recording technology (CMR). Use only CMR (Conventional Magnetic Recording) hard drives for archive storage. SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) drives are not recommended for MyVMS archives, because their write performance can become unpredictable under sustained mixed workloads.
  2. 24/7 operation. The disk should support continuous operation 24 hours a day, seven days a week. NAS and Enterprise-class drives are recommended for archive servers.
  3. Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF). MTBF parameters for each HDD model can usually be found on the manufacturer’s website. This parameter can be used as one of the indicators when comparing drives intended for continuous operation.
  4. Revolutions Per Minute (RPM). We recommend 7200 rpm hard drives for archive servers with active playback and multiple simultaneous clients. This recommendation is based on mixed workloads, including continuous recording, random archive playback, search operations, and video export, rather than sequential write speed alone. When using high-RPM drives, make sure that the server provides adequate cooling.
  5. Random Access Time. Random access time affects how quickly the drive can access different areas of the archive during playback, search, and other non-sequential operations. Lower access time is preferable for archive servers with multiple simultaneous clients.
  6. Input/output operations per second (IOPS). IOPS indicates how efficiently a drive can handle multiple read and write operations. For video archive workloads, random and mixed I/O performance should be considered in addition to sequential transfer speed.
  7. Hard disk capacity. Capacity should be selected according to the required archive depth, expected recording bitrate, and number of cameras. We recommend keeping additional free storage capacity rather than operating the archive permanently at its absolute capacity limit.
  8. HDD interface. We recommend using SATA Revision 3.0 (SATA III). SATA III is backward compatible with previous SATA revisions and uses the same connector and cable type.

HDD monitoring

S.M.A.R.T. — Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology — is a monitoring system used on computer hard disk drives. It detects and reports various indicators of drive reliability to help forecast possible hardware failures.

When S.M.A.R.T. data indicates a possible imminent drive failure, the host system software may notify the user to copy stored data to another storage device and replace the failing drive.