Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ: WDC) has expanded its portfolio of data storage devices purpose-built for the modern surveillance market, introducing three new offerings: the†industry’s first industrial-grade 3D NAND UFS embedded flash drive (EFD) for surveillance; an expanded†WD Purple microSD card†series to support up to 256GB2†capacity; and†Western Digital Device Analytics, the new device analytics technology enabling OEMs and system integrators to proactively manage their storage subsystems and maintain optimal operation.
The new devices and tools address the complex and dynamic data demands of a surveillance market in transformation, supporting the high performance, capacity, and endurance required by networked and artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled camera systems, as well as other smart video devices operating at the edge.
“As the adoption of higher resolution and AI-enabled cameras expands, and traditional centralized surveillance video systems become more distributed, fast and reliable storage with higher capacities are essential for enabling surveillance devices to capture, analyze and transform greater amounts of data, locally, and in real-time,” said Oded Sagee, senior director, product marketing, Western Digital. “With the new devices and analytics capability introduced today, we are excited to enable the new era of smart video and AI-driven surveillance systems with the industry’s most comprehensive offering for surveillance, from the edge to the core.”
In modern video surveillance, video and its rich metadata provide valuable insights for use in both forensic analyses and predictive actions, ranging from consumer behavior in retail environments, traffic patterns in cities or crowd control in public environments. Whether in an NVR, IoT gateway, multi-access edge computing node (MEC) or other configurations, surveillance cameras and edge systems are key elements of real-time, AI-enabled systems, driving increased demand for more reliable and advanced storage solutions that can operate efficiently in rugged, 24/7 environments.
Industry’s First 3D NAND UFS-Based EFD for Surveillance
Built on the company’s advanced 3D NAND architecture, the Western Digital iNAND IX EU312 UFS EFD brings UFS speeds combined with industrial grade high endurance and high capacities to cameras and smart video applications at the edge. The new device delivers read speeds of up to 750 MB/s1†and write speeds of up to 320 MB/s1, which support read- and write-intensive use cases, including AI-enabled video cameras and edge devices. Support for up to 768 TBW provides the robust endurance levels required for the continuous recording conditions. The EFD features advanced NAND flash management firmware, including robust error correction code (ECC), read/refresh, wear-leveling, and bad block management.
Expanded Surveillance-Class Storage for 4K- and AI-Enabled Video at the Edge
In April 2018, Western Digital introduced the WD Purple microSD card designed specifically for surveillance cameras, bringing the WD Purple series’ high performance, endurance, and reliability to always-on video surveillance cameras at the edge. Now leveraging 3D NAND technology and available in capacities ranging up to 256GB2†with support for up to 1,000 P/E cycles, the WD Purple microSD card line delivers long-lasting, on-camera storage for the demanding 24/7 continuous operation workloads required by AI-enabled and high-resolution professional surveillance cameras. The microSD card supports operating temperatures ranging from -25∞C to 85∞C and is humidity resistant to support continuous operation in extreme weather conditions and a variety of indoor and outdoor environments.†
Proactive Storage Management with Western Digital Device Analytics
Supported by Western Digital’s WD Purple hard drive, WD Purple microSD cards, and the Western Digital IX EU312 UFS EFD, the device analytics technology provides system integrators and end-users unprecedented ability to proactively manage storage on their surveillance systems. Device analytics provide a set of parametric operational and environmental data to the host system that ultimately helps users pre-empt potential issues. Through its deep analytics capability, device analytics can extract insights and provide integrators and users with recommended actions that will allow improved monitoring and proactive management of their systems to help maintain optimal storage operation, and, in turn, contribute to the reduced total cost of ownership (TCO).
Western Digital Enables Surveillance Data to Thrive
The new Western Digital iNAND UFS EFD, high capacity WD Purple microSD cards and Western Digital Device Analytics technology together complement a full portfolio of data storage devices for today’s surveillance needs. The portfolio includes the†Western Digital WD Purple Surveillance HDD†for high-capacity support for NVRs and DVRs, the Ultrastar HDD series for use in back-end storage, video analytics servers, and deep learning systems, and the company’s industrial grade iNAND e.MMC, SD and microSD storage solutions for use with surveillance cameras and a variety of connected surveillance applications. Together, they provide OEMs, surveillance system integrators and installers a complete edge-to-cloud solution to capture, preserve, access and transform data.
