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WD's Purple reign continues: 12TB helium disks for vid spy tech

Eight platters serving up 1.5TB each for data-belching surveillance cameras

Video surveillance is an insatiable monster, constantly needing more digital storage – and Western Digital is now feeding it 12TB drives.

WD's Purple hard disk family this week had a 20 per cent jump in capacity, from 10TB to 12TB, courtesy of incrementing the platter count by one to eight, and an increase in per-platter capacity to 1.5TB from 1.4TB. Like the 10TB Purple drive, this new 12TB HDD is filled with helium, and it spins at 7,200rpm. It has a 256MB cache, and delivers data at a sustained rate of 245MB/sec though a 6Gbit/s SATA interface.

Also, like the 10TB Purple spinner, it has technology to smooth video-stream recording, branded as AllFrame AI tech, and time-limited error-recovery to make RAID rebuilds faster. The latest drive has a 1.5 million hour MTBF rating, supports 24x7 operation, has a 360TB/year workload rating, and a three-year warranty.

The mechanics are basically the same as the WD Gold nearline 12TB drive. That drive is higher-spec'd than the 12TB Purple, with a five-year warranty, 2.5 million-hour MTBF rating, and 550TB/year workload.

Toshiba has an MG07 ACA 12TB drive with eight platters, and a 14TB device with nine platters, both helium-filled and spinning at 7,200rpm. It is not specifically for video surveillance. Seagate's SkyHawk video-surveillance HDDs top out at 10TB, with seven platters. Not for much longer we expect.

Check out a WD Purple HDD data sheet here. ®

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