Western Digital Fuels Growing AI-Enabled Video
Recording Systems Market With Expanded Family of WD Purple Solutions
Combination of New 18TB HDD, 1TB microSD card, and Proven Software Optimized
for 24/7 Streaming Workloads Provides the Capacity, Performance and Durability
Required for Recorders, Smart Cameras, Deep Learning-Enabled NVRs and Video
Analytics Applications
SAN
JOSE, Calif. – Sep 23, 2020
Enabling customers to design and build solutions for a variety of smart video
workloads, Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ: WDC) today announced its expanded
family of WD Purple™ storage solutions, including the industry’s highest
capacity 18TB* surveillance HDD for DVRs, NVRs and analytics appliances, and
the 1TB* WD Purple SC QD101 microSD™ card for AI-enabled cameras. Setting the
bar for smart video applications, all WD Purple drives are optimized to help
reduce frame loss and pixelation, improve overall video playback and enhance
streaming for 24×7 workloads – from ingest to backup and long-term storage – as
the industry broadens the use of deep learning and analytics.
From commercial buildings to municipalities, businesses are accelerating
adoption of AI and deep learning to enable automation and better efficiencies
that ultimately help create a safer and better experience for employees,
customers and communities. Deep learning algorithms, hungry for data generated
by IoT and edge ecosystems, demand higher resolution for better accuracy,
increasing the need for storage capacity in cameras and NVRs. In its recent
report, Video Surveillance & Analytics Intelligence Service, July 2020,
Omdia states that shipments of cameras enabled with deep learning algorithms
will continue growing at a five-year (2019-2024) CAGR of 67 percent, and NVRs
enabled with deep-learning analytics will grow at 37 percent. Meanwhile, video
analytics appliances shipments are expected to grow at 43 percent. In addition,
a 2020 Western Digital-commissioned survey
of North American security system integration companies found that 76 percent
of them see video analytics and AI as playing an ever-increasing role in their
deployments.
Beyond Hardware
Western Digital’s HDD firmware optimizations and data management capabilities
for its WD Purple drives play a critical role in improving system capabilities
as well as managing devices across AI-enabled smart video solutions. The
combination helps improve performance, reliability, durability and overall
better operational efficiency and TCO for customers. Western Digital’s
AllFrame™ technology for WD Purple HDDs delivers extensive caching and
streaming management techniques to help prevent data loss and keep up with
ongoing stream management. Western Digital Device Analytics™,
a software-based solution for Western Digital’s HDDs, provides monitoring and
drive analysis to users, enabling them to detect problematic conditions on a
drive and provides instructions for remediation before an issue occurs.
WD Purple 18TB HDD
Leading the industry in capacity for surveillance drives, the new WD Purple 18TB HDD is
designed for NVRs and video analytics appliances as well as GPU-enabled devices
that can deliver both real-time and post analytics applications. Offering 28
percent more capacity than the previous generation, the new 18TB drive has room
to spare for storing video, reference images and metadata at the edge, to
support more effective AI. WD Purple drives from 8TB to 18TB feature AllFrame
AI technology that enables recording of up to 64 high-definition cameras, as
well as an additional 32 streams for deep learning analytics.
WD Purple SC QD101 1TB
microSD Card
This WD Purple 1TB microSD card
is designed for AI-enabled cameras, surveillance cameras and edge devices,
serving as primary or back-up data storage. It is based on Western Digital’s
advanced 96-layer 3D NAND technology, and delivers a combination of ultra-high
endurance with up to 500 P/E cycles and comes in 1TB, 512GB, 256GB, 128GB, 64GB
and 32GB capacities*. Rugged and durable, the WD Purple microSD card is weather
resistant, humidity resistant and can withstand temperatures from -25° degrees
to 85° degrees C. In compatible cameras, the card health monitor provides
installers and integrators with the ability to gauge the remaining endurance
and preemptively service the card if needed.
Availability
The WD Purple 18TB HDD will be available in October 2020, and the WD Purple SC
QD101 1TB microSD card is expected to be available in November 2020.
Supporting Quotes:
“The new WD Purple drives are uniquely designed for the demands of edge
and analytics security video appliances that will enable our customers to gain
more insights from their visual data,” said Tim Palmquist, vice president,
Americas, Milestone Systems. “As a leading developer of open and
independent IP video surveillance platforms, we value our relationship with
Western Digital and are pleased to be working together to provide data storage
that can support AI and deep learning, as well as manage multiple streams as
video resolutions rise.”
“Leading the charge for the digital transformation of physical security
for our customers worldwide, we count on strategic partners such as Western
Digital to deliver reliable and high performing storage solutions,” said
Martin Renkis, general manager Global Cloud Solutions Physical Security,
Johnson Controls. “Every Tyco Cloud video surveillance solution runs on WD
Purple today as it has for many years. As we continue to innovate with features
such as cloud-based storage health monitoring and alerts, we will continue to
count on Western Digital to deliver the advanced solutions our customers need.
We make the world a safer place with Western Digital technology.”
Eric Spanneut, vice president, Client Computing and Smart Video Business at
Western Digital, said, “Working side-by-side with our customers and
ecosystem partners gives us unique insights and focus on delivering solutions
that are optimized for the most advanced security video workloads. AI is
driving the need for more enhanced capabilities in drives to keep up with
performance demands, especially as video resolution and the number of incoming
streams increase. We are in a unique position as the combination of our
software and expanding drive portfolio makes our solutions ideal for deployment
into a multitude of smart video applications.”
Western Digital’s
Purpose-Built Portfolio of Offerings
The new WD Purple family adds to Western Digital’s growing portfolio of HDD and
SSD solutions purpose-built for a variety of market needs. These include the
new 16TB and 18TB WD Red™ Pro HDDs for SMB NAS applications (It’s Here! WD RedTM Pro 16TB &
18TB for Growing Productivity); the enterprise-class 16TB and 18TB
WD Gold™ HDDs; WD Gold NVMe™ SSDs; WD Black™ solutions that meet the extreme
demands of gamers; as well as WD Blue™ and WD Green™ SSDs to boost the
computing experience.* These solutions are available at select Western Digital
distributors, retailers, e-tailers, resellers, system integrators, and the Western
Digital store.
