Seagate Skyhawk 8TB Video Internal Hard Drive HDD – 3.5 Inch SATA 6Gb/s 256MB Cache for DVR NVR Security Camera System with In-house Rescue Services

Bought a few of these hard drives for a NVR system to replace a couple of Western Digital purple. We bought these instead of more Western Digital because they were on sale. We have been happy with both Seagate and Western Digital, usually purchasing whatever is on sale or cheaper in the capacity we require at the time. We haven't had issue or pre-mature problems with either.

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!

This Skyhawk 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 Skyhawk 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 uneventful. I have tested this drive’s bigger brother (the 10 TB version) and for whatever reason it didn’t have all the proper mounting holes. This “little” guy does have them though so it’s all good. 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 ST3000VX010 was immediately slapped into a recently built Kaby Lake i5 system to help perform DVR / NVR duty. Recording over-the-air TV and several 3MP IP cameras, this drive didn’t miss a beat. 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.