Seagate has launched its new 16TB-capacity SkyHawk AI surveillance hard drive, the highest-capacity in its class, to meet the growing storage demands of the edge.
The edge is where cameras and sensors today can capture and record not just security video data to keep people safe, but also the data to help traffic and crowds flow smoothly, help businesses improve services, help scientists monitor weather events, help civil servants more effectively target services and public transit, and help speed response to fires and other emergencies.
Larger capacity hard drives like the 16TB SkyHawk AI, paired with AI-enabled NVRs, allow organizations to analyze that captured data in real-time, looking beyond just security to identify myriad improvements to operational efficiencies, to enhance customer engagement, and to predict potential business risks.
Unlocking insights from video
System integrators know today’s video capture and analysis requires more than a standard PC hard drive. A surveillance-optimized drive is necessary to support around-the-clock workload rates and ensure there are no dropped frames. With AI becoming more important to video analytics, drives also must reliably support simultaneously recording the heavier workloads of both AI and video streams. In a world where data is king, every frame counts — both for meeting liability and video retention policies, and for delivering value to customers and the public through deep learning and predictive analysis.
With the ability to store over 10,000 hours of HD video, while simultaneously capturing from up to 64 HD cameras and 32 AI streams, the SkyHawk AI is optimized for NVRs, tuned for 24/7 workloads, and equipped with ImagePerfect AI firmware to minimize dropped frames and downtime. It delivers a workload rate of 550TB/year (3 times that of standard surveillance drives), and a 3-year limited warranty. Customers also benefit from market-leading SkyHawk Health Management software and optional Rescue Data Recovery services. SkyHawk Health is included on all SkyHawk and SkyHawk AI drives and actively monitors and analyzes drive health, empowering users to prevent, intervene and recover from potential anomalies.
The edge in action
Video capture and analysis, security and surveillance play a major role for early adopters of edge computing, such as manufacturing, healthcare, retail, education and smart cities. Where the traditional business IT core leverages mostly in-house, private clouds for data retention, deep learning, and archival applications, organizations across the board are now increasingly embracing the edge — putting the compute power and the data analysis where the action happens. The edge enables smarter innovations and real-time decision-making to happen like never before. Reduced latency and improved bandwidth benefit edge applications that require immediate response at the site of data capture. Retail businesses are leveraging it as a competitive edge to determine product placement and inventory status to enhance profitability. In healthcare, remote health services can monitor and track patients for potential issues or emergencies, and thus respond more quickly; timeliness of data can sometimes be literally life or death. In cities, intelligent traffic monitoring and management can reduce and divert traffic to ease congestion in real-time.
Video and sensor analytics applications are exploding and already are creating massive amounts of data. As a key component to every video surveillance system, storage is expected to grow 18% annually, according to IHS. The future of surveillance technology is not becoming simpler. Seagate SkyHawk AI’s new massive 16TB capacity, on the other hand, helps to remove some of that complexity — enabling easier storage scalability, better reliability and performance, and added peace of mind with drive health monitoring and optional data recovery services.
