jhonovich 0 Posted October 20, 2010 On average, how long does a DVR usually last? 2,4,6 years, more, less? I know it depends on a lot of factors including the manufacturer, quality of the DVR, location of the DVR, etc. However, I was hoping to hear different people's experiences. In my experience, I've seen a lot of DVRs last 5-7 years. Indeed, most of the DVRs I deployed in the 2005-2005 frame are still in service. Is that an outlier? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
WendyT 0 Posted October 29, 2010 It depends really on the usage and environment. I have some customers that have their DVR broke down below 1 year. Some can maintain it for several years... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SEANHAWG 1 Posted October 30, 2010 A decent one should last a long while. Its the hard-drives that you may have to change. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rory 0 Posted October 30, 2010 It should last forever, until it gets damaged from say a brownout or the capacitors start to go or the DVR blows up from natural causes (?). As mentioned the most common thing to go on them are the hard drives, which can be changed. Most have the power supply as a separate part so if that goes that can also be changed. Most stand alone DVRs are just really basic boards, nothing much on them to go bad. I have a GE DVR from 8 years ago at a clients business still going strong to this day. Actually only had to change the hard drive once as it is on a voltage regulator, seems the hard drive just failed after several years. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SEANHAWG 1 Posted October 30, 2010 And I would bet that the most common misconception to a broken DVR is that the Hard-Drive went bad. So if anyone has a DVR that you think that has went Kaput, try changing the hard-drive and see what that does. I have gotten some great deals on some brand name DVR's off of ebay that were listed as "for parts or not working" in which the user mistakenly thought that the DVR went bad, and all it was was a bad hard-drive. Changed out the hard-drive and it was as good as new. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Henry-f 0 Posted November 2, 2010 I would also agree that the hard drive can often be an issue, even when the symptoms might not lead you to thinking the fault is a hard drive related one. Most people expect a hard drive fault to manifest it's self as the DVR switching on, displaying the cameras but not recording. What often happens is the DVR won't fire up at all because as it goes through it's check list when booting up it sees a problem with the hard drive and freezes or remains in a constant loop. Pull the hard drive out and all is well again. A good DVR should allow you to swap out certain components easily. Fans, hard drives, etc.. Henry Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Soundy 1 Posted November 2, 2010 ^Agreed there: I have a Dynacolor DVR that was pulled out because it would start up, run fine for about two minutes, then freeze solid. I pulled it out of storage about a year later to test it, found that it would lock up as soon as anything tried to access its search database (I could make it lock consistently by going into the database settings). Swapped out the hard drive... and it works flawlessly. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
