Sizing up video surveillance storage

The video surveillance storage market is huge and growing, but it comes in many shapes and sizes, each with it own unique approach to storing video content.

Extra Small
PC based home surveillance is becoming more prevalent for the do-it-yourself consumer.  Companies like Logitech and traditional security companies like Panasonic have entered the fray with solutions aimed at the home owner.  In this case, traditional desktop hard drives, or external USB/Firewire storage are used to save recorded video.

Small
One “size larger” than the DIY home owner, would be the small office or even home office (SOHO), where more traditional embedded DVRs are used. These surveillance systems have been the staple of the low to mid-range market for years.  Companies like Swann Security provide plug-and-play kits through retailers like Costco, Frys,  and Amazon. These solutions typically deploy surveillance friendly hard drives optimized for video streaming with low power and a higher reliability in a 24 x 7 application like surveillance.

Medium
The sweet-spot of the market…where we have seen huge growth is storage capacity demand.  The medium sized space is made up of  SMB customers that are deploying more and more integrated solutions that include surveillance, access control, fire, etc. Here we have a mix of traditional DVRs and Hybrid DVRs.  Large installed bases of analog cameras mixed with a desire to transition to IP makes this “size” ripe for companies that have security and IT expertise.  Here the storage gets more advanced combining surveillance hard drives and enterprise hard drives designed to be used in RAID arrays or network storage.

Large
Take the medium size up a notch by adding NVRs to the mix. This group consists of surveillance customers that are or have made the move to IP.  NVRs and IP SAN based storage  is what fits here.  Customers like airports, casinos, large retail, are investing in storage solutions designed much the same as those for the enterprise. Companies like Pivot3 and Intransa are active in this “size”.

What does the future hold?  IMS believes VSaaS (Video Surveillance as a Service) will finally make some headway primarily in the  Small size where immediate benefits like reducing costs and management time can be enjoyed. VSaaS is exactly what it sounds like – managed surveillance services – where all you have on your premises is cameras. The storage and management takes place off-site, and all the business has to pay is a monthly service fee.

There are more trends driving this space across all the “sizes” and within each one. We’ll talk about those next.

What surveillance size are you?

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