Hikvision CCTV DVR - SSD Upgrade?

[anonymous-user]

I’ve been tasked with looking at a friend’s CCTV system. It was installed about 7 years ago and it appears that the HDD has failed.

The DVR is a DS-7208HQHI-K1 from what I can read on the label. Unsure what size the HDD is. As I’m replacing it can we substitute an SSD instead? If so, does anyone know which ones might be compatible or should I stick with a regular magnetic drive?

Or is it easier to just replace the entire DVR? They have 5 cameras.

[JoshSm]

You don't want an SSD for that job as they don't have the endurance to survive constant streaming writes. HDD on the other hand will happily take it.

There are HDD ranges specifically for this job (WD Purple??) but any of the high uptime stuff like the Red or Gold probably works too.

[anonymous-user]

Everyday is a school day! Did not know that. Yes the WD purple range comes up on most of my searches so I’ll go with that. Thank you.

[Timothy Bucktu]

I've had an SSD in my old Hikvision DVR for about 4 years and it's been fine.

[JoshSm]

Timothy Bucktu said:

I've had an SSD in my old Hikvision DVR for about 4 years and it's been fine.

Have a look at the SMART stats and see how much life it has in it. Also does depend on the drive; I've got enterprise ones that will take silly amounts of wear but most of the commodity ones won't and if anything drive endurance has worsened over the years as they've been cheapened. Plus the lifespan also relates to how much capacity it had at the beginning and how full you keep it. And when it dies it will be very abrupt.

The spinning rust on the other hand doesn't really care about any of that and should mostly just keep ticking if it's just left on and the environment is benign. Assuming it's one spec'd for 24/7/365 uptime. Ones for DVR type use will also lean on technology that's not so suitable for other situations - less need for random access and more continuous bulk writes.

There are use cases for SSDs and DVRs really aren't one of them.