Seagate "SkyHawk" 2Tb CCTV HDD...Bought to replace a failing WD of similar type after only 28 months service.Read all the usual reviews and those within the CCTV industry and decided to give this Seagate model a try.Fare too soon to give a review as only been fitted and running for a little over 2 weeks but needless to say it installed as expected and the system formatted the drive as it needed and away it went.Delivery from CCL Bradford was as quick as ever, would have been even quicker if I had been able to collect with them been local to me but came exceptionally well packed to cushion the drive on it's short travel.Time will tell!

Better than expected honestly.

Lets try something different, up until I had so many Seagate 3TB M001 drives die on me, I tried some WD 6TB reds, one got sent back twice, then finally died out of warranty recently, even have a 6TB Black that came DOA, so much for best of the best. Funny thing is i have several 3TB WD and Seagate NAS drives in an 8 drive RAID10 for well over 5 years now and have yet to have any problems. I am using this particular drive for backup purposes. I was pretty surprised how fast this drive is, 235MB writes and 245MB reads. Also for such a large format drive, its access times are pretty low all considering. It was nice to just plug it in and it just worked, very first power on it chirped(maybe something got knocked out of place during transportation?), but after that its ... MoreLets try something different, up until I had so many Seagate 3TB M001 drives die on me, I tried some WD 6TB reds, one got sent back twice, then finally died out of warranty recently, even have a 6TB Black that came DOA, so much for best of the best. Funny thing is i have several 3TB WD and Seagate NAS drives in an 8 drive RAID10 for well over 5 years now and have yet to have any problems. I am using this particular drive for backup purposes. I was pretty surprised how fast this drive is, 235MB writes and 245MB reads. Also for such a large format drive, its access times are pretty low all considering. It was nice to just plug it in and it just worked, very first power on it chirped(maybe something got knocked out of place during transportation?), but after that its been whisper quiet, almost had me scared there. After the run around with 6TB drives and its not only me, I am hoping the 8TB drives last longer, but honestly not being DOA is a great start for me, 2 of 3 WD 6TB drives came DOA, one was a RED and the other one a BLACK, but surprisingly on RED worked from the get go and has for almost 4 years from now, so who knows. Cross my fingers. But honestly this drive is faster and quieter than my WD Black 6TB and around the same price, with the exception of the 2 less years of warranty, its a pretty good deal.

CCTV DVR replacement HDD

I bought this HDD to replace my original 2TB HDD in my Swann Security camera DVR system. The new 4TB HDD works perfectly, faster playback than the original even though it was of the same brand. It was very easy to replace, just plug and play.

Great drive for NVR

For those of us not having many cameras, buying smaller capacity surveillance cable drives still makes sense. At present, a 1TB drive is about the smallest I'd consider to be viable for that purpose. My NVR automatically configures drives for RAID configuration, so four of these 1TB drives were needed. This was the only drive that arrived in perfect condition on the first try. Mostly that's due to the fact that it was also the only one properly packed for shipment. It took 3 separate orders totally 6 drives to get just three working drives when ordered from another vendor via the "smile" site. Even the "smile" site gave up on trying to successfully fulfill my order after the vendor shipped a third attempt only to result in yet another failed drive. Kudos to VPCI for ... MoreFor those of us not having many cameras, buying smaller capacity surveillance cable drives still makes sense. At present, a 1TB drive is about the smallest I'd consider to be viable for that purpose. My NVR automatically configures drives for RAID configuration, so four of these 1TB drives were needed. This was the only drive that arrived in perfect condition on the first try. Mostly that's due to the fact that it was also the only one properly packed for shipment. It took 3 separate orders totally 6 drives to get just three working drives when ordered from another vendor via the "smile" site. Even the "smile" site gave up on trying to successfully fulfill my order after the vendor shipped a third attempt only to result in yet another failed drive. Kudos to VPCI for properly packing the drive! Thanks! I wouldn't hesitate to order a disk from you guys again!

Guy's review of SKYHAWK 2TB SURVEILLANCE 3.5IN 6GB/S SATA 64MB

Pros: The packaging was impressive: no plastics, but recyclable cardboard in an intricate form that protected the drives well. The drives themselves were well finished, screw threads clean and free of swarf, all excellent. I've only had them for a few months, but they have been quiet and fault free.Cons: I changed policy from 7,200 drives to these. The difference in speed is not noticeable in normal use, but it certainly was when transferring 2TB data to each one. Faster NAS drives would be something to look forward to in future.

Huge Capacity for single drive and fast for a magnetic spindle drive.

I did test this with a number of network / IP cameras recording directly to this drive which was installed on a PC purpose-built to house a drive for the cameras. It's difficult to test a drive this way since you don't really get a feel for its performance. If the system records the video feeds from the cameras, it's good. I let the system record video from the cameras for a week straight and after that week, fast-forwarded through the recordings. No issues that I could see. So then I transferred the drive into a PC used as a standard desktop (for work, gaming, etc.). The drive performed well enough. CrystalDiskMark measured ~ 187MB/s read speeds and ~ 181MB/s write. That's fantastic for such a high capacity, spindle drive. I'm running solid state drives in ... MoreI did test this with a number of network / IP cameras recording directly to this drive which was installed on a PC purpose-built to house a drive for the cameras. It's difficult to test a drive this way since you don't really get a feel for its performance. If the system records the video feeds from the cameras, it's good. I let the system record video from the cameras for a week straight and after that week, fast-forwarded through the recordings. No issues that I could see. So then I transferred the drive into a PC used as a standard desktop (for work, gaming, etc.). The drive performed well enough. CrystalDiskMark measured ~ 187MB/s read speeds and ~ 181MB/s write. That's fantastic for such a high capacity, spindle drive. I'm running solid state drives in everything now so I'm used to snappy transfer rates. This was good. If you're looking for a drive or drives to use for constant / non-stop recordings from security cameras or even for general desktop usage / data storage, this drive delivers. Performance is top-notch for a spindle based drive in these times where everyone seems to be switching to solid state drives. The only hangup I have with it is the fairly high price which brings it in the same ballpark as some decent, dual camera systems.

Incredible Drive

The emergence of affordable HD video surveillance systems capable of supporting many cameras has created a demand for high-capacity, high-performance, affordable, and reliable storage. Many drives check off a few of these requirements, but after a week with the Seagate SkyHawk, I feel it checks all of the boxes and is the best mechanical drive I have come across in a long time. You know it is a premium drive as soon as you feel it in your hand. And with a three year warranty and 1M hours MTBF, Seagate knows it too. This drive is optimized for write-intensive operations, and Seagate claims support for 64 simultaneous HD cameras! While I can’t vouch for that many cameras, I can say that the six cameras I had connected to it recording real-time video had no issues ... MoreThe emergence of affordable HD video surveillance systems capable of supporting many cameras has created a demand for high-capacity, high-performance, affordable, and reliable storage. Many drives check off a few of these requirements, but after a week with the Seagate SkyHawk, I feel it checks all of the boxes and is the best mechanical drive I have come across in a long time. You know it is a premium drive as soon as you feel it in your hand. And with a three year warranty and 1M hours MTBF, Seagate knows it too. This drive is optimized for write-intensive operations, and Seagate claims support for 64 simultaneous HD cameras! While I can’t vouch for that many cameras, I can say that the six cameras I had connected to it recording real-time video had no issues whatsoever, and at various times I streamed a 1080p feed to my big screen at the same time, with absolutely no lag or buffering. This drive replaced two 4TB drives, allowing me to free up a bay and possibly add another 10TB drive in the future. At around $40/TB, pricing is on par with what I paid a year ago for the 4TB NAS drives I removed, but with much more cache and better performance optimization for the task at hand. The drive was immediately recognized by my BIOS and by Windows 10. I did a full format (not quick), which took approximately 16 hours. Sadly as others have mentioned, NTFS formatting ate .91TB of space, leaving 9.09 of usable space. Still, not too shabby. I am very pleased with this drive and feel it is currently the best drive for NVR/DVR duties. Time will tell how long it lasts, but the MTBF rating and warranty give me some peace of mind there. Overall I highly recommend this drive. Great job Seagate!

It's a hard drive... quieter than expected.

If you need space for video recording these seem to be designed well for that purpose.My drive came in just an anti-static bag (no retail packaging). I have no idea if this is intended as the person on duty for live chat was unable to tell me. If this is important to you, I'd confirm it before ordering. That being said... It's a hard drive. If it is intended to come in bulk style packaging, it's not really that big a deal.I've been sitting about a foot from this drive. I can hear it, but I don't notice it unless I'm thinking about it. I didn't expect it to be that quite under load. So, that's good. This is a drive bay serving only one drive..... So, If you're doing an entire array of drives, your milage may vary.The only reasons I didn't give it 5 stars is ... MoreIf you need space for video recording these seem to be designed well for that purpose.My drive came in just an anti-static bag (no retail packaging). I have no idea if this is intended as the person on duty for live chat was unable to tell me. If this is important to you, I'd confirm it before ordering. That being said... It's a hard drive. If it is intended to come in bulk style packaging, it's not really that big a deal.I've been sitting about a foot from this drive. I can hear it, but I don't notice it unless I'm thinking about it. I didn't expect it to be that quite under load. So, that's good. This is a drive bay serving only one drive..... So, If you're doing an entire array of drives, your milage may vary.The only reasons I didn't give it 5 stars is because:a.) Uncertainty of packagingb.) The true test of a HD is longevity & it hasn't been that long yet.

Quality Surveillance Solution

I first installed this drive into my PC to make sure for stability/error testing and to make sure it performed adequately. I got around 180 MB/s Read & Write bandwidth from HD Tune Pro, which is very respectable for a platter HDD of this capacity. I live on a large property with three separate surveillance systems setup around the exterior, so I decided to use the SkyHawk drive as a backup for the footage. After using it for about 2 weeks it has performed superbly. Based on current capacity I estimate I have several months, maybe at least six or more, of space available for footage. I clean it out every week or so, it's more space than I need for now -- However if I decide to add extra cameras to the system, the extra space will become useful. This drive is clearly ... MoreI first installed this drive into my PC to make sure for stability/error testing and to make sure it performed adequately. I got around 180 MB/s Read & Write bandwidth from HD Tune Pro, which is very respectable for a platter HDD of this capacity. I live on a large property with three separate surveillance systems setup around the exterior, so I decided to use the SkyHawk drive as a backup for the footage. After using it for about 2 weeks it has performed superbly. Based on current capacity I estimate I have several months, maybe at least six or more, of space available for footage. I clean it out every week or so, it's more space than I need for now -- However if I decide to add extra cameras to the system, the extra space will become useful. This drive is clearly targeted at Enterprise implementations; large surveillance areas with possibly dozens of cameras and years of footage. The SkyHawk series was designed for 24/7 surveillance usage, meaning it is capable of handling always-on writes. In my experience it performs above and beyond and hopefully over the next few years it will continue to impress!

Store All The Things

This behemoth hard drive from Seagate specifically targets the video surveillance user. Seagate’s new “Guardian Series” drives feature high MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure), RVS (Rotational Vibration Sensors), huge amounts of cache, 7200 rpm spindle speed, and high workload ratings. The SkyHawk in particular also boasts enhanced ImagePerfect™ firmware. The series overall seems aimed at home or small business users who want huge, reliable storage, but aren’t necessarily setting up an enterprise level server. Pulling this bare drive out of its protective hot dog package, you realize it is something special. It’s got a heavy bulk to it that’s just different from other drives. It’s got your standard SATA and power connectors, along with the 4-pin jumper set that goes ... MoreThis behemoth hard drive from Seagate specifically targets the video surveillance user. Seagate’s new “Guardian Series” drives feature high MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure), RVS (Rotational Vibration Sensors), huge amounts of cache, 7200 rpm spindle speed, and high workload ratings. The SkyHawk in particular also boasts enhanced ImagePerfect™ firmware. The series overall seems aimed at home or small business users who want huge, reliable storage, but aren’t necessarily setting up an enterprise level server. Pulling this bare drive out of its protective hot dog package, you realize it is something special. It’s got a heavy bulk to it that’s just different from other drives. It’s got your standard SATA and power connectors, along with the 4-pin jumper set that goes unused. Installing the drive was mostly uneventful, save for missing two of the middle-side mount holes usually found on a 3.5” form factor drive. C’mon Seagate, really? You’d think at this level one wouldn’t need to one-screw-wonder the thing. Seagate makes the claim that the drive is optimized for recording up to 90% of the time and supporting up to 64 HD cameras. With a Workload Rating of 180TB per year, and MTBF of 1,000,000 hours, the SkyHawk should certainly have no problem handling that. Though it’s clear that the drive is marketed at the home or small business user who will likely not even approach those numbers. If you’re a user big enough to have 64 cameras, you’d likely spend the extra 20% it takes to snag Seagate’s Enterprise level drive dubbed “Helium”. The ImagePerfect firmware is a caching mechanism allowing for quick spin up of the drive when it’s needed (e.g. when a camera detects motion and needs to instantly start recording). The RVS helps with interference if you have lots of spinning drives in the system. This SkyHawk ST10000VX0004 was immediately slapped into an aging but capable i7 920 system with 8GB of RAM which serves DVR/NVR duty. Recording over-the-air TV and several 3MP IP cameras, this drive didn’t miss a beat and obviously provided a massive increase in storage potential (Thanks, DVR, for letting me know a year’s worth of HD video recording is now available). With a 64K allocation size, NTFS formatted, GPT partition, the drive shows 9.09TB available in Windows 7 (that’s 9,957,049,892,864 bytes for you nerds that understand). Multiple real world file copy tests showed this drive averaging around 120 MBps. Pretty reasonable for a spinning drive with 10TB of space. The SkyHawk’s closest direct competitor would be the Western Digital Purple series, which, while comparatively priced, has half the cache and spins at 5400 rpm. Overall this new drive from Seagate fills a great need for many home users who are constantly needing more and more fast, localized storage. The only ding is the missing mounting holes and that wasn't worth losing an entire egg over.