• expired

Seagate SkyHawk Surveillance 3.5" 4TB Hard Drive for $129 @ MSY

660

As above. This the cheapest price for an internal 4tb I've seen. Please check your local store for stock first. I just grabbed one from Malvern for that price.

For home use this would be fine for Desktops, Surveillance and I'm now running mine in my home NAS.

The drive model i got was - ST4000VX007-2DT166

The spec sheet is here

https://www.seagate.com/www-content/datasheets/pdfs/skyhawk-…

OK I think this is a link to MSY's store availability.

Looks like vic is out

http://www.msy.com.au/vic/mitcham/5-internal-hdd/17955-seaga…

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  • Great price. Should be good for NAS too

    • +2

      Not advisable.
      The firmware in a surveillance drive is designed to skip writes under heavy load rather than slow down.
      With Video a few dropped frames does not matter where in a NAS, missing data is pretty important.
      Also looks like it is optimized for 90% write where as most NAS will be more reads than writes.

      • So they wouldn't be recommended even for data backup?

        • +4

          Main issue is if the data transfer's interrupted, it won't stop and try to do it again. The HDD is mainly used for constant writing with little error handling. If backup data is important, get a proper NAS drive for the sake of the data.

        • any personal experience?

      • +4

        How would a hard drive know how to drop video frames? How does it skip writes without corrupting the file system? How can they be trusted to not drop the crucial identifying frame?

        • +2

          It writes to a cache until the cache is full, at which point the cached data is committed to disk. These drives claim to prevent loss of frames which can occur is too many writes are requested simultaneously (imaging writing a large number of streams concurrently). Using a higher capacity cache means fewer writes, which means writes can span longer times. This is probably bad for a NAS as it's heavily optimised for writes (90%) and there is a risk of data loss if power is interrupted before the cache can be committed to disk. Additionally, NAs drives are optimised for NAS and include some useful features to assure successful writes.

        • +2

          @no not me:

          Just disable on-disk cache.

        • +2

          @mshannon: Great review, was just about to post it here. For someone looking to use this for a home NAS, this should be absolutely fine. These disks may not be optimal in some scenarios but I highly doubt data loss is a serious concern for a home NAS utilising these disks. It should perform just fine.

          By the way, that blog has a completely random yet interesting note. The author managed to get licensing for some images Netflix used without his permission for Stranger Things retail boxsets: http://goughlui.com/2017/11/22/netflix-uses-my-vhs-cassette-…

        • @no not me:

          It writes to a cache until the cache is full, at which point the cached data is committed to disk.

          Mmm, using a buffer for write acceleration isn't unique to this drive.

          Where does the "dropped frames" situation come in, as mentioned by mullarpa? He's implying that if the drive is under heavy load, it'll simply discard data.

          and there is a risk of data loss if power is interrupted before the cache can be committed to disk.

          That's the case with all hard drives, even some modern SSDs like the Samsung 960 Pro which doesn't have power loss protection caps.

        • @eug: I don't think there is a risk of dropped frames, given that the drives boasts never losing a single frame. Also, I don't think all video formats are suseptible to data loss, which this drive would have to accomodate. It just seems absurd. I think the drive has a larger write cache and possibly little-to-no read cache. Other users online have reported that using this drive as a boot disk will result in slow boot times due to caching differences.

      • +2

        The firmware does not skip writes. Surveillance drives are designed for continuous use, perform predictable thermal recalibration and tend to have longer guarantees or MTBF.

      • +1

        You're right, but for a home NAS this should be fine.

        I got this for a home NAS and Plex unit. While it is powered on 24/7 its not constantly being accessed which means more than half of the time it's in low-power mode anyway.

        I'm guessing many OZBs would be looking at something like this.

      • +1

        There was a long-term debate, but I tend to believe this drive is actually a good value NAS drive. The frame-skipping rumor and what not is just a marketing strategy to push you towards those NAS drives.

        • +1

          I don't see how anyone could say frame loss. You can't just pull frames out of H.264, MJPEG, H.265 as you wish. These formats are all different and handle data loss differently. Some more sensitive formats might not even play on some DVRs if there is corruption. This is a huge indicator that the frame loss claims are BS, because any surveillance HDD worth its salt would aim to prevent loss by prioritising writes, which is exactly what this HDD does.

  • +1

    I just want to store Movies, this OK?

    • +1

      yes. will work great

  • -6

    Is this some sort of spy camera? I would think it wouldn't work as it would either be inside the case or in an external enclosure so how would it record audio and video? Or in surveillance, do you mean it uploads everything on it so I can see what my workers are doing?

    • its meant to be used in surveillance video storage

    • +7

      Yes it is, you nailed it in 1. Don't consider buying any and leave it to others!

  • nice finding, will grab one as soon as I'm off work.

  • Recently paid $188 for a 4tb WD Purple to put in my Hikvision NVR. This would make a great 2nd drive :)

    • +1

      Grabbing one for the Hikvision at my mums house . I put an old bungy in there years ago and it must be close to death by now .

  • Excellent drive for a CCTV system NVR. I had a normal hard drive and the 24/7 constant read drive caused it to failed in under 2.5 years. Havn't looked back since buying a surveillance hard drive like this one.

  • Is this really 7200rpm as msy say?, all the identical ebay ones are showing 5900rpm..

  • +1

    That ESET deal is pretty good too

  • And I’m negged for telling the truth… note that this drive even comes with RV sensor.z anyway, hater gonna hate

    • That's ozbargain for you

  • Tempting with the price, but hesitate with the surveillance things :(

    use for my main RAID 1 working drive, so maybe invest in something better then

    • If it's just for a home NAS it should be fine.

  • Thanks bought one. Finally can install all my steam games instead of rotating them

  • +1

    Great, picked up 2 for a Hikvision system i have coming.

  • Am I the only one noticing the 7200/5900rpm discrepancy?

    • Right, should be 5900rpm according to all other sources.

      • It's 7200rpm from everywhere I looked unless there's two versions?

        • All the ebay listings seem to report 5900. That's even odd given I thought only 7200 or 5400 existed, maybe cause Surveillance type the rpm is diff? No idea..

          In anycase my WD purple is 5400 and I paid $188 with 20% off, this Seagate is a bargain and so I bought irrespective of whichever rpm it is.

        • @ninjataki:
          5900 rpm is relatively new but not very new. Kinda balance between performance, noise and reliability.

        • @poporange630: Ah i see.

  • Hi All
    Can anyone please confirm/comment if I can use this hard drive in swann Dvr8-5000?

    If not any recommendations which hard drive can I use to upgrade current storage which is only 1 TB

    Thanks in advance

  • None left MSY Malvern

    • Sorry:) Just put it in my Nas and it's rebuilding now.

      • +2

        I got the last one :) (or so the dude told me :) )

      • not kind!

  • +1

    Dammit i bought 4 of these not too long ago for $190+ each! This is a friggin good deal… Dunno if there are any left….

  • Just do a deal on WD Black.

  • OK so mine has been rebuilding in my NAS for over 12 hours without any issues, interestingly enough this drive is showing at 28 degress celsius versus other drives which are around 35 degrees so if heat is a factor in your setup this might assist as well.

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