Are Solid State Disk Drives for PC DVR a good idea?

[FranciscoNET 0]

With Solid State Disk Drives increasing in capacity and decreasing in price.

 

I was just seeing a SATA 256GB SSD drive being sold on Ebay for $299 with specs of 200Mbs for Read speed and 200 Mbs for Write speeds.

 

I know the limitations of SSD such as the limited 1000 write cycles per cell (I read that about 2 years ago, but I assume that number is much higher now, like in the 10,000 or something like that). But anyways, can I use a drive like this for a 4 to 8 CH CIF quality (288x252) DVR PC system recording at like 4 true Frames Per Seconds per CH (that should give me like 60 days before over write is required, and if the limit is 1,000 per cell in my example, then to overwrite each sector 1,000 at that rate should take for ever that the mere limitations of cell over writes should not be paid attention to this case as it will take decades of years before a bad cell gets developed at like 60 days per overwrite per cell.

 

Is there anything I should be concerned first before I start doing installation based on Solid Disk Drives? I wouldn't mind paying up to 5x the normal drive price if that would mean that I can guarantee my customers that the hard drive will never crash as the conventional mechanical drives have been a real problem for me, out of 10 installations I do, 2 of them have defective hard drives that I have to replace and reload windows plus everything on the new drive.

[bpzle 0]

I've never used SSDs. Still too expensive for me. But then again, I hear what your saying... time IS money and running around replacing HDs is a big waste.

 

About your problem with replacing a lot of HDs... what make/model have you been using? Are you consistently using the same?

 

Also, when I build a PC based system I NEVER store video to the same hard disc as the OS and server software. It's saved me many times to keep the "video" drives separate from the important, hard to set back up stuff. In my opinion, when your writing to a hard disc 24/7 it's a matter of WHEN not IF that it will fail.

[tweak'e 0]

i was looking at solid state for mobile DVR systems.

 

if your doing PC based systems why not RAID arrays? cheaper than SSD and when a drive fails plug a new drive in and let it rebuild.

if your regularly getting HD failures then you really need to look at why. heat and power supply are usually the two main factors, commonly due to cheap PSU and case.

[FranciscoNET 0]

I've never used SSDs. Still too expensive for me. But then again, I hear what your saying... time IS money and running around replacing HDs is a big waste.

 

About your problem with replacing a lot of HDs... what make/model have you been using? Are you consistently using the same?

 

Also, when I build a PC based system I NEVER store video to the same hard disc as the OS and server software. It's saved me many times to keep the "video" drives separate from the important, hard to set back up stuff. In my opinion, when your writing to a hard disc 24/7 it's a matter of WHEN not IF that it will fail.

 

What I have been doing so far is using a 500GB Seagate SATA Hard Drive, breaking it into two partitions, Partition0 set at 10GB for the Windows XP Operating System and the Secondary Partition1 set at 489.99GB for the Video Files. So two partition using the same hard drive.

 

I haven't used two hard drives because of the costs, but before considering the SSD solution I was thinking of the posibility of using a 20GB hard drive for the Operating System and the DVR software and a secondary, perhaps 500GB hard drive for the Videos. However, this may no longer be required if it is safe to just use, perhaps a highly reliable 256GB Solid State Disk Drive for everything.

 

Now the thing that I am not completely sure is how the SSD technology handles the writes procedures when the SSD will be written with 4 to 8 video FILES simultaneously and with over time, will that cause some type of instability, should I go for a MLC (Multi Layer Cell) or a SLC (Single Layer Cell), etc. Its all questions I got before I attempt to go SSD in a surveillance system install.

 

i was looking at solid state for mobile DVR systems.

 

if your doing PC based systems why not RAID arrays? cheaper than SSD and when a drive fails plug a new drive in and let it rebuild.

if your regularly getting HD failures then you really need to look at why. heat and power supply are usually the two main factors, commonly due to cheap PSU and case.

 

 

About the RAID Array suggestion, yes that's a possibility and yes its cheaper than SSD, but if I end up concluding that SSD is relatively safe, after examining the reviews and suggestions that I may get at this forum with then my tests done at my office I would still prefer SSD over anything else. I know that SSD may be more expensive, but there is nothing better than being able to guarantee a customer 100% that there wont be a hard drive failure, that the integrity of all recordings is completely safe. Oh, what about raising my warranties from 1 year (current) to maybe like 3 years or more (projected if SSD is a GO) customers would love that given the fact that nobody else within my area that provides the same service that I do dares offers warranties in excess of 1 year and the reason is because of the impending mechanical hard drive eventual failures (I dont think any one can guarantee a mechanical hard drive will be in PERFECT condition after being written 24/7 for like 2+ years unless their advertisements is over hyped)

[rory 0]

For one those specs appear to be totally incorrect. For $299 and a 256GB if anything that would be around 20mbs. so i would double check those specs with the manufacturer's site and not just go by an Ebay posting.

 

Prices havent dropped that much, the SLOW SSD is the price range you are looking at and thats not good enough.

 

As for it writing, i have an EEE PC from last year january with a 4GB SSD, I can tell you I have written to it literally thousands of times maybe more, especially during testing of XP setup over USB and testing of many other apps on it, and its still going strong.

[tweak'e 0]

I dont think any one can guarantee a mechanical hard drive will be in PERFECT condition after being written 24/7 for like 2+ years unless their advertisements is over hyped

 

????

 

servers use hard drivers constantly non-stop for years without problems. manufactures warranties is 3 or 5 years.

SSD are NOT immune to failure. if you have design faults in the system you could end up killing expensive SSD drives.

 

if you having hardrive failures its best to work out WHY they are failing.

as in the server world your best bet is to back up.

couple of 500g hardrives and raid card (if required as lots of motherboards have raid onboard tho they don't all do the required raid level)

[rory 0]

servers use hard drivers constantly non-stop for years without problems. manufactures warranties is 3 or 5 years.

 

Thats in the best environments, in hot conditions they are lucky to last a couple years, and when they do last, they are typically not without fault. In other words cool the crap out of them and they should last the warranty at least. Main diff between hard drives and SSD is that you can drop a working SSD on the ground, try it with a hard drive and its all over, and also, SSDs dont generate the heat or power consumption of a hard drive. Personally I would never buy another laptop that has a hard drive. But for data for video, there really is no other choice but a hard drive. I can see an SSD for the system but thats going to still cost $500-1000 for a small fast SSD.

[Soundy 1]

I dont think any one can guarantee a mechanical hard drive will be in PERFECT condition after being written 24/7 for like 2+ years unless their advertisements is over hyped

 

????

 

servers use hard drivers constantly non-stop for years without problems. manufactures warranties is 3 or 5 years.

 

But this is the difference between cheap drives and "server-grade" or "enterprise-grade" drives that can cost two to three times more. I have an old Dell PowerEdge 2200 server (dual-PII/266) that's been happily running my mail/web server (Apache and CommuniGate on OS/2 Warp Server) on the same UW-SCSI drives (an 18GB and a 50GB) for.... oh, I guess six or seven years now, maybe more. The drives and system actually used to be in another tower; when I got this machine, I just added the proper driver for the on-board Adaptec controller and then swapped the drives into the Dell.

 

As Rory notes, the environment you have the drives in is crucial. Overheating is one thing that will consistently kill hard drives - proper ventilation *and proper mounting* is crucial. I've seen machines where the drives just sort of "clip in", sometimes on plastic rails, and they're far more likely to overheat because the heat can't be drawn off. When you bolt a drive solidly to the case, the case itself becomes a heat sink and helps keep the drives cool.

[Guest]

Make sure you have as litle as possible of: Vibration!

 

Make sure to dont have to hot enviroment for HDD!

Did you know the optimal temperature for a HDD is same as you? 37Celcius degrees!

 

Use HDD made for DVR systems at least for the video storage disk, C: disk not so important!

 

JD

[tweak'e 0]

Thats in the best environments, in hot conditions they are lucky to last a couple years, and when they do last, they are typically not without fault.

 

its a pc, it shouldn't be getting hot to start with. its not really a hardrive problem but a pc building problem.

no doubt they are using some cheap pc that's thrown together with no thought about cooling.

 

actually have one on the bench at the moment. no front air intake so the hardrive is cooking ! 2 min with a dremmel fixed that !

 

also where the pc is placed. it has to be cool. if the hardrives is overheating the rest of the pc will be to.

 

worse case i every came across was tv decoders which where installed in the hot water cupboard ! they had gotten so hot the cables had melted into the side of the units. why they didn't catch fire beats me.

[rory 0]

its a pc, it shouldn't be getting hot to start with. its not really a hardrive problem but a pc building problem.

no doubt they are using some cheap pc that's thrown together with no thought about cooling.

 

PCs get hot that is how they are. Especially in hot environments. Not everybody can run AC all the time. You can add all the fans in the world you want but those Hard drives will still get hot if they are in a hot location, as that air from the fans will just be hot air.

[tweak'e 0]

its a pc, it shouldn't be getting hot to start with. its not really a hardrive problem but a pc building problem.

no doubt they are using some cheap pc that's thrown together with no thought about cooling.

 

PCs get hot that is how they are. Especially in hot environments. Not everybody can run AC all the time. You can add all the fans in the world you want but those Hard drives will still get hot if they are in a hot location, as that air from the fans will just be hot air.

 

exactly. you have to build the location etc to suit. we used to have to build vents, fans etc just to get cooler air to the equipment.

SSD might be ok for those countries that are in permanent heat waves !

[rory 0]

 

exactly. you have to build the location etc to suit. we used to have to build vents, fans etc just to get cooler air to the equipment.

SSD might be ok for those countries that are in permanent heat waves !

 

Its always hot here

I miss the cold ... we get maybe 1 month a year where it goes down to around 60.

[tweak'e 0]

whats normal air temp there ? (Fahrenheit or Celsius??)

[rory 0]

Fahrenheit. Mostly 80s and 90s. We have a cold front right now though, will be mid to high 80's all this week. This is the hottest year yet and longest summer I have seen.

[tweak'e 0]

90 is ok, should not get HD failures at that air temp. 100+ start to worry.

[rory 0]

hard drive and PSUs are the things that fail all the time here, due to heat mostly (or from power issues if they dont have it on a voltage regulator). the air temp outside is 90 but inside it is much much hotter unless there is AC.

[FranciscoNET 0]

On my DVR's that I build, I put extra fans inside, also I use an ATX case that has a big fan in the side for extra internal ventilation. The hard drive is installed with no plastic mounters directly into the drive bay so the drive case can also help acting as a heat sink for the hard drive.

 

I stay away from Western Digital hard drives ever since of the massive failure rates that were being experienced by many users in their normal house computers (not DVR). Therefore I only purchase Seagate hard drives.

 

I have heard of "server grade" hard drives, but I have never purchased them because for me, it seemed like some marketing ploy, or the hard drive had extra features that wasn't really needed for a typical DVR installation thus making that hard drive very expensive. After all, all mechanical hard drives have multiple read/write heads with spinning platter discs in high speed whether they are "sever grade" or standard SATA/IDE hard drives. Even Server grade hard drives have failed very quickly (I have seen many server grade hard drive crash in a web server in like 6 months or less after installation).

 

Also, I know its crucial in the type of motherboard used to build a DVR server, I only use top grade models, such as ASUS. As for the Power Supply Unit I only use the ULTRA brand ones rated at 800 watt to make sure that the PSU will never be an issue.

 

In every case of my DVR installations, when a failure occurs it is always 100% the hard drive. none of my cameras, fuse box, mainboard, PSU, LCD screents, etc has failed, not a single one of them, it is always just the hard drive. Out of 10 installations, 2 of them got eventual faulty hard drives.

 

As rory said, heat is the number 1 cause of hard drive failures. I will start mounting heat sinks designed for hard drives in top of the hard drives from now on and see if that decreases the failure rates.

 

I know that a 20% failure rate may not be a big deal, but each time that I have to return to my customer's place to perform warranty service, that time that I am not getting paid extra, its the same time that I could be dong something productive elsewhere that generates me more income.

 

What I am aiming here is at 100% perfection and that's why I asked about SSD because SSD has a lesser failure rate 100 times than regular conventional hard drives.

 

As per the other poster here suggesting RAID, if there is a hard drive failure that would still require me to physically show up to the place to change the drive and let it rebuilt.

 

***as long as MECHANICAL hard drives are being used, it will never be reliable, there will always be faulty ones due to manufacturer's defects or other causes (maybe the distributor dropped them, etc). I do see SSD dropping in price very fast and increasing in capacity. I was searching online and I saw a PQI SSD SATA hard drive for around $299 with 130 mbs read and 100mbs write, it seems a good pick for a 4CH DVR system, after all 128GB is acceptably fine for 4 CH.

 

Since I am HIGHLY tempted to use SSD in my future customers installations, I plan to purchase a few of them to test and benchmark them locally at my office so I can witness how they operate since no where in the internet have I found any one that have posted about their experiences over using SSD's for a DVR application I guess I shall find out on my own.

[tweak'e 0]

i would be interested to see what temps your HD's are running at. for a windows pc theres plenty of monitoring software.

 

for me the only times i've come across HD failure is due to bad install. one was that they bolted another drive hard up against the original drive, they got so hot you could not hold your finger on one. died about a year later even after it was shifted.

i've had others that ran so hot the pc's kept crashing. the case had NO air vents. the hardrives never died even tho they would have been near on fried.

 

the other thing......what drives are you using. some drives are notorious for putting out lots of heat.

the other possibility is to use 2.5" drives. lower power consumption which = less heat produced.

[Soundy 1]

On my DVR's that I build, I put extra fans inside, also I use an ATX case that has a big fan in the side for extra internal ventilation. The hard drive is installed with no plastic mounters directly into the drive bay so the drive case can also help acting as a heat sink for the hard drive.

 

More important than simply adding more fans, is that the fans be laid out to create proper airflow. Typically, you want fresh air into the front of the box, hot air out the back. One common mistake I see is a fan blowing inward, mounted on the back panel right under the power supply - all this does is pull in cool air, where the CPU's fan can take it and blow it right back out, leaving the rest of the air in the box sitting stagnant and hot. Leaving a bunch of slot-blanks open (the punch-outs in the back where cards go) can adversely affect airflow as well, reducing the amount that's pulled in from the front and across the hard drives.

 

I stay away from Western Digital hard drives ever since of the massive failure rates that were being experienced by many users in their normal house computers (not DVR). Therefore I only purchase Seagate hard drives.

 

It's funny, the "good" brand seems to change every few years... Seagate currently (or until just recently, anyway) has been quite infamous for a series of firmware problems in their 1TB drives. We've been using mostly WDs lately with few problems... meantime there are a bunch of older systems we support out in the field using those thin 40GB Maxtor drives for the system drives, and we had a TON of those die within about a 2-year timespan... yet larger Maxtor data drives (mostly 250s and 320s) have been rock-solid.

 

I have heard of "server grade" hard drives, but I have never purchased them because for me, it seemed like some marketing ploy, or the hard drive had extra features that wasn't really needed for a typical DVR installation thus making that hard drive very expensive. After all, all mechanical hard drives have multiple read/write heads with spinning platter discs in high speed whether they are "sever grade" or standard SATA/IDE hard drives. Even Server grade hard drives have failed very quickly (I have seen many server grade hard drive crash in a web server in like 6 months or less after installation).

 

It's not a matter of features, so much as robustness - higher-quality components, tighter manufacturing tolerances, etc. It's certainly not a marketing ploy, although it may be more than what's required for DVR use. The fact that most have three-to-five-year warranties speaks volumes, compared to one-to-two years on most "desktop" drives these days.

 

As rory said, heat is the number 1 cause of hard drive failures. I will start mounting heat sinks designed for hard drives in top of the hard drives from now on and see if that decreases the failure rates.

 

Drives don't typically need MASSIVE cooling... just keeping fresh air moving across them is usually enough to keep them happy. Again, the real trick with that is creating proper airflow throughout the case.

 

As per the other poster here suggesting RAID, if there is a hard drive failure that would still require me to physically show up to the place to change the drive and let it rebuilt.

 

Depends on the setup. Use an array with hot-swap support, and all you have to do is pop out the old drive, swap the new drive into the sled, plug it in, and be on your way, no need to even shut down the unit. RAID 5/6 rebuilding doesn't require constant monitoring (especially since it can take several hours).

 

***as long as MECHANICAL hard drives are being used, it will never be reliable, there will always be faulty ones due to manufacturer's defects or other causes (maybe the distributor dropped them, etc). I do see SSD dropping in price very fast and increasing in capacity. I was searching online and I saw a PQI SSD SATA hard drive for around $299 with 130 mbs read and 100mbs write, it seems a good pick for a 4CH DVR system, after all 128GB is acceptably fine for 4 CH.

 

This is true, mechanical drives are the last, weakest link in computers. SSD is getting there, but doesn't have a very good price point YET.

 

Since I am HIGHLY tempted to use SSD in my future customers installations, I plan to purchase a few of them to test and benchmark them locally at my office so I can witness how they operate since no where in the internet have I found any one that have posted about their experiences over using SSD's for a DVR application I guess I shall find out on my own.

 

Well, do keep us posted! I don't think the issue is that nobody's sharing, so much as that nobody's really using them for that yet. Consider: the capacity is still limited and the cost/GB is still relatively high... the main place they'll be usable as data drives is in smaller, low-cost DVRs... which most people buy BECAUSE they're low-cost; adding a low-capacity drive that could possibly cost more than the DVR itself would be a hard sell in most circumstances.

[thewireguys 3]

On my DVR's that I build, I put extra fans inside, also I use an ATX case that has a big fan in the side for extra internal ventilation. The hard drive is installed with no plastic mounters directly into the drive bay so the drive case can also help acting as a heat sink for the hard drive.

 

I stay away from Western Digital hard drives ever since of the massive failure rates that were being experienced by many users in their normal house computers (not DVR). Therefore I only purchase Seagate hard drives.

 

I have heard of "server grade" hard drives, but I have never purchased them because for me, it seemed like some marketing ploy, or the hard drive had extra features that wasn't really needed for a typical DVR installation thus making that hard drive very expensive. After all, all mechanical hard drives have multiple read/write heads with spinning platter discs in high speed whether they are "sever grade" or standard SATA/IDE hard drives. Even Server grade hard drives have failed very quickly (I have seen many server grade hard drive crash in a web server in like 6 months or less after installation).

 

Also, I know its crucial in the type of motherboard used to build a DVR server, I only use top grade models, such as ASUS. As for the Power Supply Unit I only use the ULTRA brand ones rated at 800 watt to make sure that the PSU will never be an issue.

 

In every case of my DVR installations, when a failure occurs it is always 100% the hard drive. none of my cameras, fuse box, mainboard, PSU, LCD screents, etc has failed, not a single one of them, it is always just the hard drive. Out of 10 installations, 2 of them got eventual faulty hard drives.

 

As rory said, heat is the number 1 cause of hard drive failures. I will start mounting heat sinks designed for hard drives in top of the hard drives from now on and see if that decreases the failure rates.

 

I know that a 20% failure rate may not be a big deal, but each time that I have to return to my customer's place to perform warranty service, that time that I am not getting paid extra, its the same time that I could be dong something productive elsewhere that generates me more income.

 

What I am aiming here is at 100% perfection and that's why I asked about SSD because SSD has a lesser failure rate 100 times than regular conventional hard drives.

 

As per the other poster here suggesting RAID, if there is a hard drive failure that would still require me to physically show up to the place to change the drive and let it rebuilt.

 

***as long as MECHANICAL hard drives are being used, it will never be reliable, there will always be faulty ones due to manufacturer's defects or other causes (maybe the distributor dropped them, etc). I do see SSD dropping in price very fast and increasing in capacity. I was searching online and I saw a PQI SSD SATA hard drive for around $299 with 130 mbs read and 100mbs write, it seems a good pick for a 4CH DVR system, after all 128GB is acceptably fine for 4 CH.

 

Since I am HIGHLY tempted to use SSD in my future customers installations, I plan to purchase a few of them to test and benchmark them locally at my office so I can witness how they operate since no where in the internet have I found any one that have posted about their experiences over using SSD's for a DVR application I guess I shall find out on my own.

 

What case do you use? Also it would be easier to recover the system if you used 2 HD's one for OS and one for storage. If the storage drive dies all you have to do is replace the drive no OS to reinstall. It the OS dies and you have a back up solution like Acronis you can replace the drive and have it backup very quickly.

 

I just started playing with Acronis for my NVR builds and it works very well. Once I have the system setup I burn the image on DVD and save it in my customers file.

 

 

Also I would not trust ebay for my NVR builds. The cheapest 256gb SSD on Newegg is $595.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010150636%201421446019&name=256GB

Edited November 10, 2009 by Guest

[thewireguys 3]

Also what about something like this for the OS

 

http://www.logicsupply.com/products/sfm20i_8g

[Soundy 1]

Also what about something like this for the OS

 

http://www.logicsupply.com/products/sfm20i_8g

 

"Plugs directly into a SATA connector on a mainboard. " - that's pretty slick! That would be perfect for a system/OS drive. Most of my builds, I only slice off a 10GB-15GB system partition as it is.

[rory 0]

Also what about something like this for the OS

 

http://www.logicsupply.com/products/sfm20i_8g

 

"Plugs directly into a SATA connector on a mainboard. " - that's pretty slick! That would be perfect for a system/OS drive. Most of my builds, I only slice off a 10GB-15GB system partition as it is.

 

Pretty slow:

Read 24 MB/sec.; Write 14 MB/sec

 

hey, speeed up that slow laptop

Read 160 MB/sec.; Write 140 MB/sec. $159.99

http://www.logicsupply.com/products/fd2510si8g

 

use a 2.5" to 3.5" adapter for the DVR/NVR?

[Erron S. 0]

Just in case you haven't seen it..

 

Wave of the future, just waiting for the prices to come down.