New from storage product company Seagate Technology plc is its SkyHawk AI hard disk drive (HDD), the first drive the firm says created specifically for artificial intelligence (AI) enabled video surveillance. The drive is for managing always-on, data-intensive workloads, while analysing and recording footage from multiple HD cameras; it comes in 10TB and 8TB sizes, each supporting up to 64 HD cameras.
Analytics on video surveillance hardware is growing exponentially, forecasted to increase from 27.6 million shipments in 2016 to 126 million shipments in 2021 (Cropley, 2017), as hardware manufacturers continue to include analytics sensors on network video recorders (NVRs). This will only increase as AI – particularly deep learning and machine learning applications, such as facial recognition and analyzing irregularities in behaviour – come into wider use. As the need for fast video analytics will continue to rise, that too will add to the workload for NVR storage.
Sai Varanasi, vice president product line management at Seagate Technology, said: “The use of AI technology in surveillance is steadily increasing – both in the edge and backend installations such as retail fronts and large city traffic management. Seagate has led the surveillance storage market since its early days, a decade ago, by delivering industry leading HDD products that have enabled more than five-times increase in exabytes during this time period. We are excited to introduce smart, purpose-built SkyHawk AI solutions that expand the design space for our customers and partners, allowing them to implement next-generation deep learning and video analytics applications.”
SkyHawk AI is the makers say for intensive computational workloads that typically accompany AI work streams, to locate and deliver video images and footage analysis. This enables on-the-edge decision making, eliminating the latency of exchanging cloud-based data and processing. With Seagate ImagePerfect AI firmware, the drive records video with no dropped frames, while facilitating AI-enabled NVR analytics, the company adds.
Guo Xudong, deputy general manager of domestic sales and marketing, Hikvision said: “As smart cities, smart transportation, and other surveillance programs become more prevalent, the number of surveillance nodes has reached the hundreds of thousands. Due to the widespread use of high-definition monitoring, the amount of data required in security surveillance has dramatically increased. The efficient collection, analysis, and application of data is becoming ever more critical. We are excited that Seagate will launch the industry’s first AI optimized surveillance drive which will enable us to efficiently manage data storage and processing challenges, including, but not limited to, our DeepinMind NVR series.”
Yang Shengwei, products and solutions director, Domestic Sales Operation Center of Dahua Technology said: “Video analytics has been evolving over the past 10 years and is garnering a lot of attention these days due to the use of AI. Dahua Technology made an early start in AI applications and has since made several achievements in the industry, for example, the newly launched IVSS series,” said. “As a strategic partner, Seagate’s advanced technology will help Dahua to reach a new top in the AI field. We hope with the newly launched SkyHawk AI drive we can boost the AI application across the surveillance industry.”
And Li Lin, vice president of Uniview said: “With the rapid advancement of IoT, cloud computing, and big data, we’re entering an intelligent security era. AI is now prevalent in the security market and will be driving the development of the industry in coming years. Data storage is a key factor for surveillance and we believe with the SkyHawk AI drive we can optimize the performance of Uniview’s systems and increase value for our clients.”
SkyHawk AI is now shipping to customers worldwide through appointed authorised distributors. Visit www.seagate.com/internal-hard-drives.
The SkyHawk AI drives are covered by a five-year limited warranty, and comes with a two-year coverage from Seagate Rescue Services.
