For video surveillance storage and RAID considerations (1)

Over the years, with the simulation content gradually transition to digital content, new video surveillance application pattern emerged.

Enterprise Security team and information technology team needs to strengthen cooperation and common design can meet more complex requirements of the solution. For example, despite the fact that about 95 percent of video monitoring i/o operations for write operations, but the majority of enterprise-class storage systems are designed to speed up the read speed and write speed will often be data protection constraints.

Written applications and traditional read/write system differ in the specification.

First of all, and video clips are missing (footage loss) related to the risk level is this class stores the application the customer needs to be considered the most important determining factor. Other factors that need to be concerned about also includes storage capacity, resolution and data protection, etc.

Select RAID which rank to a large extent depends on these factors ultimate priority.

In order to obtain the best storage solution, we need to thoroughly understand the customer belong to which level and the available budget.

High-end applications

High-end applications operate 24/7.

For a video fragment missing as a result of the risk is extremely high, with high-end application (airports, prisons, etc) are often required to meet strict regulatory requirements to ensure that the data is intact. Due to the often requires long-term preservation Petabyte (not GB) of data, large storage capacity requirements is crucial. Video stream number is quite high, for example with 100 camera system weekly produces over 30 terabytes of data. High-end applications often require the highest possible resolution, bit rate is quite high. In addition, because the content once the loss that is difficult to duplicate, so no matter how high the cost, is of utmost importance to the protection of data from your hard drive. Such environments are another factor to consider is the storage system in case of any array must be able to save the video stream, this also includes in degraded mode or in the reconstruction period to ensure that the minimum performance standard.

RAID 6 is to ensure that the best option for 24 x 7 operation, it provides dual parity protection can cope with double drive failures, and allows administrators in data from damage before there is enough time to replace the failed drive.

Midrange applications

Application for mid-tier organizations (businesses, schools, etc.), the video stream capture failure risk associated with relatively low, but still have higher capacity requirements to meet the on-demand archive and reference video clips.

On the data quality requirements may vary, and some may require a higher resolution, and only need to meet a lower video quality. Avoid data protection and drive failure is still very important, but the difference with high-end application lies in the midrange applications in rebuilding the array when you can accept a small frame loss, of course, this phenomenon should be avoided.

If archiving requirements needed to support high data availability, the RAID 6 will be the best choice for customers.

If the customer itself in the field have enough IT personnel to replace the drive, or that it does not have to ensure the long-term work 24/7, RAID 5 is more applicable to this case relative to RAID 6 can help you obtain higher net storage capacity.

Low-end applications

Low-end product major consideration is the cost issue, even if the frame loss nor too big a risk, but also allows to rewrite every day, so the capacity requirements are lower.

The low-end applications (retailers, small office, etc.) can be used to lower the image resolution, drive failure would not need to worry about data protection issues.

RAID 0 is the lowest-cost RAID level, to the least number of drives for maximum performance, and provide the system with the largest net storage capacity.

However, if you have a drive has failed, use RAID 0 will result in data loss. If customers need data protection capabilities, and budgets are strained, consider using RAID 10 or 5, and so on other levels.

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