SourceSecurity.com attends Western Digital’s technology unveiling of WD Purple, a hard drive specifically designed for the surveillance market

Western Digital’s WD Purple surveillance-class hard drives are equipped with AllFrame Technology

SourceSecurity.com was recently invited to the press unveiling of Western Digital’s newest storage product for the surveillance industry, WD Purple. Presented by Jermaine Campbell, UK Country Manager of Western Digital at the Charlotte Street Hotel in London, Campbell enthusiastically talked through the technology release, explaining Western Digital’s reasons for the products development, as well as its key features and advantages.

Having spent 6 months evaluating WD Purple before its release, with testing including extensive engineering evaluations, Western Digital is confidently tagging this product as “The Evolution of Surveillance Storage”. As Campbell listed its features, it is not hard to see why Western Digital is so excited about this products release. WD Purple provides 24x7 reliability, offering end-users peace of mind security. The storage product is also capable of supporting up to 32 HD cameras, allowing for expansion of future or existing systems. Most importantly, WD Purple surveillance-class hard drives are equipped with AllFrame Technology, which works with ATA streaming to reduce errors and frame loss and to improve playback performance. Further advantages of the product include up to 4TB of hard drive space, making the WD Purple the largest surveillance drive on the market and BIC (Best in Class) power consumption.

“There has been a really interesting transition for WD over the last 8 years from 2005-2013”, said Campbell at the event. “50% of our business is going into Non PC applications. This trend shows that we need to be putting our efforts and investments into applications which are Non PC. Of the Non PC markets, the surveillance sector is getting bigger and bigger.”

Built for easy integration into new or existing video surveillance systems, WD Purple hard drives are designed and tested to surveillance-class standards and are compatible with industry-leading chassis and chip-set. Initial launch partners of WD Purple include Qnap, Hikvision, Dahua, Samsung Techwin, Synology, Panasonic US, Pelco and Q-See.    

There is no doubt of the confidence WD have in their product. “We want to become THE surveillance storage brand,” continued Campbell. “We want to educate the industry that you have to pick the right drive for the right application”

Campbell was joined at the event by WD’s Senior Channel Marketing Manager Alessandra de Paula and Daniel Mauerhofer, WD’s Head of Public Relations, EMEA & India.