Western Digital Purple microSD Card for Surveillance Systems

As the adoption of 4K Ultra HD video, AI applications and analytics drive the growth and evolution of data in surveillance, Western Digital Corp. (WDC) unveiled the Purple microSD card, purpose-built for the complex and dynamic data demands of surveillance cameras and edge systems.

Purple microSD is purpose-built
for surveillance system data demands

Whether it’s a business employing surveillance video to keep their assets secure or a retailer utilizing surveillance to analyze shopping behavior through video facial recognition, capturing and assessing every moment is critical. Optimized for 24/7 surveillance video capture, surveillance system operators can count on the Purple microSD card to support a continuous surveillance workload. With its performance, the card captures and preserves video in a variety of high-definition and next-generation formats, including 4K Ultra HD video, as well as nimbly supports the movement of data to core data systems for analytics and fast business insights. The rugged and humidity-resistant design of this card enables trusted video capture in a range of environmental conditions, including outdoors in snowy winters and indoors in hot and humid factory settings.

“From big data, to fast data, to data-centric applications such as surveillance, the volume, speed, variety and value of data continues to exponentially grow and transform. Leveraging our proven capabilities in consumer and industrial memory card innovation, the Western Digital Purple microSD card is the ideal solution for mainstream commercial surveillance data at the edge,” said Christopher Bergey, VP, embedded and integrated solutions, Western Digital. “Whether capturing 4K video, used in AI-enabled cameras, or part of a larger data system supporting ‘smart surveillance’ applications, this rugged and intelligent card delivers ‘surveillance-class’ endurance and tremendous performance to enable trusted video capture in some of the harshest conditions. When combined with our popular Purple and Ultrastar HDDs to support data preservation and real-time analytics, Western Digital now provides the industry’s most comprehensive offering for surveillance data, from the edge to the core.“

Optimized for evolving data-centric surveillance demands
Designed to support a range of video resolutions and surveillance video recording implementations, additional highlights of the new microSD card include:

• Endurance for continuous recording: Supports up to 1,000 PE cycles.

• Card health status functionality for easy card maintenance: In compatible cameras, a health monitor offers reporting capabilities to provide users and system installers valuable information, including the card’s endurance and capacity status, enabling predictive maintenance and taking the ‘guess work’ out of when to service the card.

• Performance for next-generation video: Offers speeds of up to 80MB/s sequential read and 50MB/s sequential write and supports Speed Class 10 and UHS Speed Class 11.

• Trusted video capture in range of climates: Designed for use in temperatures ranging from -25°C to 85°C, it enables reliable video capture indoors and outdoors.

• High capacity to capture and preserve video if connection to network connection is lost: Offered in capacities up to 64GB ⁽²⁾.

“Today’s surveillance systems have moved beyond simple low-resolution video capture, to massive networks capturing 4K video and leveraging advanced new analytics software to unlock new business value from video recordings,” said Michael Palma, research director, semiconductor and enabling technologies, IDC. “This has resulted in a surge in the volume and velocity of surveillance data at the edge and is creating demand for storage solutions that support the performance requirements of 4K video, 24/7 operation, and movement of video for smart insights.“

Purple Surveillance HDD

Purple surveillance device portfolio enables surveillance data to thrive
The Purple microSD card complements a portfolio of storage devices purpose-built for today’s surveillance needs, including the Purple Surveillance HDD for high-capacity support for NVRs and DVRs and the Ultrastar HDD series for use in back-end servers performing surveillance analytics. Together, they provide surveillance system integrators and installers a solution to capture, preserve, access and transform surveillance data. Additionally, the company offers OEMs industrial-grade SanDisk Industrial card storage solutions for use with cameras with in-camera analytics capabilities and a variety of connected surveillance applications.

The microSD card will be available worldwide through the firm’s authorized reseller network in April in 32 and 64GB capacities for $18.99 and $31.99 MSRP (in the U.S.) respectively; cards available in single 25-packs for surveillance system installers and integrators.

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⁽¹⁾  MB/s = one million bytes per second. Based on internal testing; performance may vary depending on your hardware and software components and configurations.
⁽²⁾ As used for storage capacity, 1GB = one billion bytes. Total accessible capacity varies depending on operating environment.