Latest WD surveillance drives add new AI capabilities

Western Digital has announced an expanded range of its Purple surveillance hard drives, including a massive new 18TB HDD. The line-up also includes a 1TB WD Purple microSD card for AI-enabled cameras.

WD Purple drives from 8TB to 18TB feature AllFrame AI technology that enables recording of up to 64 high-definition cameras, as well as an additional 32 streams for deep learning analytics.

Western Digital says all WD Purple drives are optimised to help reduce frame loss and pixelation, as the industry broadens the use of deep learning and analytics.

From commercial buildings to municipalities, businesses are accelerating the adoption of AI and deep learning to enable automation and better efficiencies that ultimately help create a safer and better experience for employees, customers and communities. Deep learning algorithms, hungry for data generated by IoT and edge ecosystems, demand a higher resolution for better accuracy, increasing the need for storage capacity in cameras and network video recorders (NVRs).

In a recent report, “Video Surveillance & Analytics Intelligence Service”, research firm Omdia states that shipments of cameras enabled with deep learning algorithms will continue growing at a five-year (2019-2024) CAGR of 67 per cent, and NVRs enabled with deep-learning analytics will grow at 37 per cent. Meanwhile, video analytics appliances shipments are expected to grow at 43 per cent.

Also, a 2020 Western Digital-commissioned survey of North American security system integration companies found that 76 per cent of them see video analytics and AI as playing an ever-increasing role in their deployments.

“AI is driving the need for more enhanced capabilities in drives to keep up with performance demands, especially as video resolution and the number of incoming streams increase,” said Eric Spanneut, vice president, Client Computing and Smart Video Business at Western Digital.

“We are in a unique position as the combination of our software and expanding drive portfolio makes our solutions ideal for deployment into a multitude of smart video applications,” he added.