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 DVR System Reviews - SD Card vs Hard Drive
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BPWags
New Member

USA
6 Posts

Posted - 03/16/2017 :  11:34:11 AM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Good Afternoon,

I will be going out for bid for about 40 DVR systems. I have had Safety Vision, REI and SEON. I have not been unhappy about SEON overall, but am wondering if I should consider going SD Card like ProVision or Gatekeeper.

It appears the last time this topic was discussed was in 2010...which may as well be 1860 in terms of technology.

I have heard plenty from the salespeople...now I want to hear from users who can compare various manufacturers/formats from personal experience.

Thanks for your help.
BPWags

Thomasbus24
Administrator

USA
4544 Posts

Posted - 03/17/2017 :  08:02:43 AM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
I can only comment on REI.

I have 28 hard drive systems and 2 SD card systems. If you don't have to save videos much or only have 1 camera head, SD card would be fine. Other than that, I don't recommend them and in fact I'm going to replace mine with hard drive systems this summer.

On the REI SD's saving video with multiple camera heads ends up saving as multiple files and it becomes a real pain in the rear to figure out which files are which. Add to that the the longer the clip, the more files it saves as.

The hard drive type save all as one file. That and with my K12 on one bus routing, I have months of video available on hard drives before it overwrites.

My advice would be to ask for a demo of saving video from the other SD systems vs. hard drive systems.
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RonF
Top Member

867 Posts

Posted - 03/20/2017 :  12:47:33 PM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
We have Angeltrax, stay away, very far away. As far as hard driver vs. SD card, like Thomasbus said, Storage space is the issue, however we have yet to replace a bad SD card, unlike hard drives.

US Army retired CMBT
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krmvcs
Advanced Member

362 Posts

Posted - 03/20/2017 :  1:08:55 PM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Weve got SEON. Currently upgrading camera heads. Dont know if you anyone here knows, but weve figured out that you can buy laptop hard drives for cheap instead of the expensive replacements from SEON.

-Ken-
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BPWags
New Member

USA
6 Posts

Posted - 03/21/2017 :  10:15:57 AM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Thanks. I know what you mean about the multiple views...I looked at Gatekeeper and their playback software allows you to pick which camera's to download.

I am moderately concerned about the storage space with SD cards, but am sick and tired of hard drive failures!
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scot1337
Senior Member

119 Posts

Posted - 03/22/2017 :  4:33:02 PM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
I have only had experience with Gatekeeper systems, both SD card and hard drive. Like what others have stated before, it depends on the recording space your after. I have had issues with both systems with Gatekeeper and have had to have SD cards replaced. The SD cards were for an older unit which has been discontinued. They do make 128G SD cards that, with 4 HD heads and 30FPS, can hold about 3 full days worth of video. I would ask the sales rep to run a demo and see for yourself how they run and determine if it will work for you. Gatekeeper has been pretty good to me so far.
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BPWags
New Member

USA
6 Posts

Posted - 03/23/2017 :  05:44:11 AM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Thanks for that information. As I said, Gatekeeper seems like a great system and am interested in getting away from hard drives. I guess I need a compelling reason to move away from SEON other than a pushy salesman;}
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