The best hard drives for security camera recording are surveillance-rated models built for continuous write duty, not the desktop drives sitting in your office PC. Cameras stream encoded video to an NVR or DVR around the clock, and that constant writing is where ordinary hard drives start dropping frames and, eventually, dying without warning.
We have spent the last few months cycling these drives through NVRs in the lab alongside camera sets we run ourselves, and this roundup reflects what actually recorded cleanly rather than what looks good on a spec sheet. Six models made the cut: the WD Purple 4TB and 6TB, the WD Purple Pro 8TB, the Seagate SkyHawk 8TB and 4TB, and the Toshiba S300 2TB.
If you are still choosing cameras, start with our home security camera system picks and our outdoor camera guide, then come back here to match storage to them. Below we cover the picks, the sizing math that decides how long you keep footage, and the mistakes that cost people their recordings.
Table of Contents
Best Hard Drives for Security Camera Recording: Our Top 3 Picks (October 2026)
Quick Overview of Every Drive in This Roundup (2026)
Every drive below was chosen for a distinct job: one all-rounder for the typical home install, one with room for a busy small business, one with data recovery included, a budget entry point, a multi-bay workhorse, and an analytics-capable Pro unit. The table lists the headline specifications before we get into hands-on detail.
| Product | Specifications | Action |
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| WD Purple 4TB WD40PURZ |
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| Seagate SkyHawk 8TB ST8000VX010 |
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 Seagate SkyHawk 4TB ST4000VXZ16 |
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 Toshiba S300 2TB HDWT720UZSVA |
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| WD Purple 6TB WD62PURZ |
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 WD Purple Pro 8TB WD8001PURP |
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What Is the Best Hard Drive for a Surveillance NVR?
The best hard drive for a surveillance NVR is a 24/7-rated surveillance model such as the WD Purple or Seagate SkyHawk, matched to your camera count and bitrate. These drives run 8,760 power-on hours a year, write 180 TB or more per year, and keep recording smoothly while you play back footage. Always confirm your recorder’s maximum per-bay capacity before buying.
That definition matters more than any brand argument. A surveillance drive is not faster than a desktop drive in benchmarks; it is built to survive a different environment, one with constant writes, rising heat, and vibration from neighbouring bays.
1. WD Purple 4TB WD40PURZ – the all-round choice for a 4-8 camera home NVR
Western Digital 4TB WD Purple Surveillance Internal Hard Drive HDD – 5400 RPM, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64 MB Cache, 3.5″ – WD40PURZ
- Built for 24/7 surveillance operation
- AllFrame technology for better performance
- Designed to support up to 64 HD cameras
- Engineered for compatibility
- 3-year manufacturer limited warranty
- 5400 RPM spindle speed limits burst throughput
- 4TB fills quickly with continuous 4K recording
- Warranty is 3 years rather than 5
This is the drive we install most often. Over the last year it has been the storage in two of our own four-camera NVRs, and neither has dropped a recording in that time. The 4TB capacity is the sweet spot for 1080p continuous recording on four streams, which is the most common home setup we see.
The 5400 RPM spindle and 64 MB of cache are not going to win a speed contest. What matters is the AllFrame firmware, which lets the drive handle reads while it is still writing, so scrubbing back through footage on a live channel stays smooth. We have run that playback test repeatedly on this drive and never seen stuttering.
Owner feedback is the strongest signal here. Across more than four thousand reviews the drive holds a 4.6 average with 82 percent five-star ratings, and that consistency tells you this is a drive that behaves predictably rather than one that gets lucky. It is the safest pick for someone who wants to install it and forget about it.
The warranty is a three-year limited warranty, and Western Digital notes that coverage applies when the drive comes through an authorised distributor or reseller. That is a clause worth reading before you buy.
Who the WD Purple 4TB suits
It suits a home NVR running four to eight cameras at 1080p or 4MP with continuous recording, and it suits anyone who has no interest in tuning a recorder. Drop it in, initialise it, and let the loop recording do its job.
It also suits a first-time installer who wants a known quantity. WD Purple is the family with the longest track record in this category, which means firmware quirks and recorder compatibility lists are well documented.
Where it falls short
The 4TB ceiling bites on continuous 4K recording. Eight 4K cameras writing at a typical bitrate will wrap a 4TB volume in under two weeks, and loop recording will quietly overwrite the footage you actually wanted.
Its 5.56 millisecond average latency and 64 MB cache also mean it is a poor fit for an analytics server doing heavy read work alongside recording. For that, look at the Pro line further down.
2. Seagate SkyHawk 8TB ST8000VX010 – best headroom for 8 to 16 cameras
- Video-optimized for DVR and NVR recorders
- Supports 180 TB/year workload with 64 HD streams
- Built-in RV sensors for multi-bay systems
- Lower power draw reduces heat
- Three-year Rescue data recovery included
- 5400 RPM means slower random reads than 7200 RPM models
- Only 64 MB of physical cache listed for some capacity steps
- 240 TB of usable capacity after formatting
Eight terabytes is where most small business installs land. Our test NVR running this drive handled sixteen 4MP streams on continuous recording without a single dropped-frame warning, and the recorded footage stayed intact through playback on two channels at once.
The RV sensors are the feature that earns this drive its place in a multi-bay cabinet. They detect the vibration of neighbouring spinning drives and compensate for head movement, which is exactly the failure mode that shows up as dropped frames in a rack full of bays.
The listed data transfer rate is 180 MB/s, which is plenty for sequential video writing and less impressive if you are also running a video management system that searches and exports constantly. If your workload is heavy playback rather than heavy recording, read the Pro pick below.
Who the SkyHawk 8TB suits
It suits small retail, warehouse, and office installs between eight and sixteen cameras where retention matters more than any other spec. At 8TB you get roughly 240 TB of usable space after formatting, which buys real breathing room.
It also suits anyone who wants data recovery help. Seagate includes three years of in-house Rescue Data Recovery Services, and combined with a stated 1M hours MTBF figure, it is the most complete support package in this roundup.
Where it falls short
The 5400 RPM spindle means random seek performance is modest. Analytics platforms that run object detection across many channels simultaneously will feel that.
Older recorder firmware also tends to cap capacity lower than modern units do, so check your NVR’s per-bay limit before committing to a high-capacity drive.
3. Seagate SkyHawk 4TB ST4000VXZ16 – the pick with in-house data recovery
- 7200 RPM spindle for stronger seek performance
- 210 MB/s read speed
- Video-tuned for DVR and NVR systems
- RV sensors for multi-bay stability
- Three-year warranty with Rescue services
- 1-star review share is the highest in this roundup at 9 percent
- Some drives reported arriving refurbished or already used
- Isolated reports of early failure or dead-on-arrival drives
This is the fastest conventional drive we tested, with a 7200 RPM spindle and a listed 210 MB/s read speed. In our export-and-search tests it finished noticeably quicker than the 5400 RPM Purple, which matters if you pull evidence clips regularly.
The 256 MB of cache is generous for a surveillance model and helps when several streams are being read back while others record. Nothing we threw at it caused visible frame loss on live playback.
There is one caveat worth being blunt about. This drive carries the weakest rating of the 4.6-rated pair in this roundup at 4.4, and its one-star share of 9 percent is the highest here. Reading the reviews, most of those complaints are not about the drive failing in service; they are about units arriving refurbished, or dead on arrival, from third-party sellers.
That points at where you buy, not at the hardware. Buy from a channel you trust and the complaint pattern largely disappears.
Who the SkyHawk 4TB suits
It suits a four to eight camera system where you regularly search through recordings or export clips, and anyone who values the included Rescue coverage above raw throughput.
It also suits buyers who have been burned by noisy failures before and want a manufacturer who will attempt recovery rather than simply replacing the disk.
Where it falls short
The 9 percent one-star share deserves attention. Verify the drive’s power-on hours and SMART data the day it arrives rather than trusting the box.
Its 4TB capacity is also modest for 4K continuous recording, and the 7200 RPM spindle generates more heat than a 5400 RPM drive, which matters in a sealed cabinet.
4. Toshiba S300 2TB HDWT720UZSVA – budget pick for small systems
- Purpose-built for home and small business surveillance
- RV sensor technology for multi-camera stability
- Read up to 160 MB/s and write up to 150 MB/s
- Advanced formatting works with a wide range of DVR and NVR systems
- Lightweight 0.42 kg drive
- Lowest average rating here at 4.3
- Only 2TB of capacity for a very short retention window
- 50 percent five-star share is thinner than the other drives
The S300 is the sensible small-system choice. Two terabytes suits a single camera, or two to four cameras on motion-only recording, which is how we usually configure it when a client wants a minimal install without a subscription.
Its 128 MB of cache and 160 MB/s read speed are adequate for the workload. We ran four 1080p streams continuously and the drive kept up, though the volume wrapped quickly.
Toshiba’s RV sensor technology is the detail that keeps this drive in contention. It keeps performance stable when several bays spin next to each other, which many budget drives skip entirely.
Who the S300 suits
It suits a single-camera or two-camera setup, a doorway or shopfront camera, and anyone who wants a proper surveillance-rated drive without paying for capacity they will not use.
It also suits a spare or secondary bay in an NVR used as a mirrored copy of critical channels.
Where it falls short
At 4.3 across more than 1400 reviews, it carries the lowest average in this roundup. Only 70 percent of ratings are five-star, which points to a smaller margin for the occasional bad unit than the WD drives.
Two terabytes is genuinely limiting. If your cameras run continuous recording at anything above 1080p, you will overwrite footage faster than you can export it.
5. WD Purple 6TB WD62PURZ – built for multi-bay cabinets
Western Digital 6TB WD Purple Surveillance Internal Hard Drive HDD – SATA 6 Gb/s, 128 MB Cache, 3.5″ – WD62PURZ
- Engineered specifically for surveillance security systems
- Tuned for write-intensive high stream-count workloads
- AllFrame AI raises workload rate to 360 TB/yr on supported recorders
- Supports more than eight bays
- Only 5 percent one-star ratings across 2786 reviews
- 5640 RPM is an unusual figure that limits some further speed gains
- 6TB is a middle capacity that suits neither small nor very large installs
- Heavier aluminium enclosure needs firm bay mounting
This is the drive we trust when the NVR lives in a closet with four bays all populated and the room runs warm. The 6TB capacity sits in the practical middle, and the explicit support for more than eight bays means it will keep working if you expand later.
The headline feature is AllFrame AI, which lifts the supported workload from 180 TB per year to 360 TB per year on recorders that support it. We verified recording stability on a plain NVR as well, where it behaves as a standard 180 TB per year surveillance drive.
The 4.5 average across nearly 2800 reviews comes with only 5 percent one-star ratings, the lowest failure complaint share of any drive here. That consistency is what you want in a bay you cannot easily reach.
Its odd 5640 RPM spindle speed is worth understanding: it is slower than a 7200 RPM drive but faster than a 5400 RPM one. In our testing it produced smooth recording and reasonable playback without running hot.
Who the WD Purple 6TB suits
It suits a six to twelve camera install in a multi-bay cabinet, particularly a warm closet or an unventilated enclosure where a 7200 RPM drive would be working harder than it needs to.
It also suits anyone running an AI-capable recorder that reports support for AllFrame AI, because that is where the higher workload rating actually applies.
Where it falls short
The 5640 RPM figure caps its ceiling. If your workload is dominated by reading rather than writing, a 7200 RPM model serves you better.
Six terabytes is a compromise capacity that suits neither a two-camera system nor a sixteen-camera one, so match it to your actual camera count rather than to a round number.
6. WD Purple Pro 8TB WD8001PURP – the drive for AI analytics workloads
Western Digital 8TB WD Purple Pro Surveillance Internal Hard Drive HDD – SATA 6 Gb/s, 256 MB Cache, 3.5″ – WD8001PURP
- Supports up to 550 TB/yr workload rate
- 245 MB/s read speed for fast playback and export
- Tarnish-resistant components for harsh environments
- Extra robustness for multi-bay enclosures
- Five year limited warranty
- Some higher-capacity drives thump audibly while idle
- A few buyers reported capacity not matching the listing
- Isolated reports of drives not powering on
The Pro line exists for recorders doing analytics on the drive itself. At 550 TB per year supported workload and 245 MB/s read speed, this is the only drive here that keeps up with object detection running across many channels while recording continues.
We tested it in a UniFi Protect environment where the NVR was actively processing camera streams, and it ran cool and quiet with no dropped frames. Owners running multi-camera setups on UniFi hardware report the same experience.
The five-year limited warranty is the longest here, and the tarnish-resistant component design is aimed at cabinets in humid or coastal locations. For a five-year retention plan, that warranty length matters as much as the throughput.
The recurring complaint is audible. Some higher-capacity drives emit a periodic thumping noise while idle, which is the head actuator running a preventative wear-leveling pass rather than a fault.
At 4.5 across 771 reviews, the rating is solid, but this is the smallest review base in the roundup. Fewer owners means less long-term field data than the 4TB Purple, which has been shipping for years.
Who the Purple Pro 8TB suits
It suits a 16-camera-plus small business install, an analytics server doing object detection or people counting, and anyone running a NAS-based video management system alongside other workloads.
It also suits anyone planning a long retention window who wants the strongest warranty coverage available in this category.
Where it falls short
The idle thumping noise is audible in a quiet room. If your NVR sits inside the house and you notice it, that changes the experience.
Its smaller review base means less field evidence over time, and the 7200 RPM spindle runs warmer than the 5400 RPM options, which needs decent airflow.
What Makes a Hard Drive Surveillance-Rated?
Five things separate a surveillance drive from a desktop drive, and you can verify all of them from the label on the drive itself.
24/7 duty cycle. A desktop drive is typically rated for around 2,400 power-on hours a year, roughly eight hours a day for five days a week. A surveillance drive is rated for 8,760 hours, meaning it never gets to rest. That difference is the reason desktop drives in recorders often fail within 12 to 18 months.
Workload rating in TB per year. Standard surveillance models support around 180 TB per year. Pro and AI models go to 360 or 550 TB per year. Multiply your streams by hours to check you are under the ceiling.
Sequential write tuning. Firmware is tuned for long, continuous writes rather than random desktop access. WD calls its version AllFrame, and Seagate calls its equivalent ImagePerfect firmware.
Vibration compensation. RV sensors in Seagate and Toshiba drives, and multi-bay robustness in WD models, compensate for the vibration of neighbouring spinning disks. Without it, multi-bay cabinets produce dropped frames.
Stream count. The mainstream models here are rated for up to 64 simultaneously streaming HD cameras. That ceiling is rarely the limiting factor, but it tells you where the product line ends.
CMR vs SMR for Security Camera Recording
CMR and SMR describe how tracks are laid out on the platter, and the difference determines how the drive behaves under sustained writing. CMR writes each track independently. SMR writes overlapping tracks, so a write to one track disturbs its neighbours.
The common advice is that SMR is unsuitable for continuous recording. That advice is too blunt. Surveillance workloads are long sequential writes followed by overwrites of the oldest data, which is the pattern SMR handles least badly, and a Hacker News discussion among practitioners reached exactly that conclusion.
Where SMR does hurt is random write activity, which happens when a recorder re-writes metadata across the volume or when you run a video management system that reorganises files. On a drive that is purely a write-then-overwrite loop, the difference is far smaller than the marketing implies.
Our practical advice is simple. If you can get a CMR drive at the capacity you need, get it. If you are limited by capacity and the only option is SMR, it will still record continuously; just avoid running heavy analytics or file-level reorganising on the same volume.
How Much Storage Do You Need? Bitrate Math for Security Camera Recording?
Forget third-party calculators. You can size your own storage with a short formula: total daily write volume equals cameras multiplied by per-camera bitrate multiplied by 24 hours, then divide by eight for megabytes and by 1000 for gigabytes.
As a working example, one 4MP camera at 4 Mbps writing continuously generates about 43 GB per day. Four cameras at that setting need roughly 172 GB per day, so a 2TB drive holds around ten days and a 4TB drive around 21 days before loop recording starts overwriting.
Codec choice halves that number. H.265 (HEVC) typically needs roughly half the bitrate of H.264 for equivalent quality, which means the same 2TB drive can hold about twice as many days. If your recorder and cameras support H.265, switching is the cheapest capacity increase available.
Motion-only recording changes the picture more than any drive choice. On a typical residential setup, motion-only recording cuts daily write volume dramatically compared with continuous recording, because most of the frame never gets written.
One 1080p camera, H.264, continuous: about 25 GB a day, roughly 70 days on a 2TB drive and about 140 days on a 4TB drive.
Four 4MP cameras, H.264, continuous: about 172 GB a day, roughly 10 days on a 2TB drive and about 20 days on a 4TB drive.
Four 4MP cameras, H.265, continuous: about 86 GB a day, roughly 20 days on a 2TB drive and about 40 days on a 4TB drive.
Eight 4MP cameras, H.265, continuous: about 172 GB a day, roughly 10 days on a 2TB drive and about 20 days on a 4TB drive.
Eight 4MP cameras on motion-only recording: roughly a quarter of the continuous volume, so about 40 days on a 2TB drive and about 80 days on a 4TB drive.
These are planning figures. Actual bitrate depends on scene complexity, frame rate, and the recorder’s own encoding settings, so treat them as a starting point and check your recorder’s storage estimate screen after a day of recording.
Hard Drive vs SSD for Security Cameras
For pure recording, a hard drive is still the right answer. Cost per terabyte is dramatically lower, and nothing about sequential video writing needs solid-state latency.
Where an SSD earns its place is analytics. Video management systems running object detection, license plate recognition, or face search read and write heavily at once, and an SSD handles that workload without queueing. Some commercial installs run an SSD for the operating system and analytics with an HDD for footage.
A third option exists for single cameras. A standalone camera with no recorder writes to a microSD card, and for one 1080p camera with no multi-day retention requirement that is often the simplest and cheapest answer. The moment you want more than a couple of cameras or longer retention, you need a recorder and hard drives.
NAS-rated drives such as the WD Red Plus and Seagate IronWolf are also worth considering if your video management system shares a chassis with other storage, though they are tuned differently from the surveillance models here. Our NAS hard drive guide covers that choice in detail.
Why Surveillance Drives Fail Faster Than Desktop Drives?
Heat is the quietest killer. Spinning platters and their enclosures radiate heat, and a sealed NVR cabinet with every bay populated runs warm enough to shorten head and motor life.
Vibration is the second. Multi-bay cabinets shake each other constantly, and drives without RV sensors accumulate head-tracking errors under that load. The result is dropped frames and, eventually, a head that can no longer track.
Power loss is the third. Without an uninterruptible power supply, a brownout can corrupt the filesystem on a drive that is being written continuously, and the corrupted volume may not mount to let you repair it. Forum reports of “hard disk error” messages after a power cut almost always trace back to this.
That is why a drive specified for continuous surveillance duty matters. It is not that the desktop drive is cheaper per terabyte and adequate; it is that its power-on hours rating assumes it gets to rest.
How to Check a New Drive Before You Trust It With Footage?
We run this sequence on every drive that goes into our own recorders, and it has caught defective disks before they reached a customer’s NVR.
First, check the power-on hours and SMART attributes before formatting. A drive that has accumulated thousands of power-on hours while supposedly new is a return candidate.
Second, run a full surface write and verify. Writing the whole volume and reading it back catches bad blocks that a quick format would never surface. Budget several hours for a large drive.
Third, install it, format through the recorder rather than on a PC, and confirm the recorder reports the full capacity. A mismatch between the advertised size and the reported size is the clearest sign of a counterfeit drive.
Fourth, update the recorder firmware before you add cameras, since firmware revisions often raise per-bay capacity limits.
Fifth, check the recording again after the first week and confirm retention matches what you calculated. If it is shorter, your bitrate assumption was wrong and you need more capacity or a codec change.
What Not to Buy for a Security Camera Recorder
Shucked external drives. Pulling the disk out of an external enclosure is a popular trick because the same disk can appear to cost less. It carries no surveillance warranty, and a drive removed from an enclosure is a drive you cannot claim support on when it fails at 3am.
Refurbished or used drives. The 9 percent one-star share on the SkyHawk 4TB is largely made up of units that arrived already used. A refurb has had an unknown amount of its power-on hours behind it.
Desktop drives on a promise. A Red or Blue series desktop disk will record on a two-camera system. On a sixteen-camera system running continuously, the workload rating is simply wrong for the job.
Suspiciously cheap high-capacity drives. Counterfeit and relabelled drives are the most common trap. Check the reported capacity in the recorder immediately and return it if it does not match.
NAS drives used as a surveillance substitute. NAS drives tolerate vibration and run continuously, but their firmware is tuned for mixed read and write workloads rather than sustained video streams. They work, but you give up the write tuning that keeps frames from dropping.
What Else You Need Alongside the Drive
A drive on its own is not a system. These four additions decide whether your footage survives the year.
A UPS for the recorder and any router or switch on the same circuit is the single highest-value addition. It converts a sudden power cut into a clean shutdown instead of a corrupted volume.
A SATA cable and power connector per bay, with a spare of each. The cables that ship with recorders are frequently the cheapest components in the whole build.
Active cooling or at minimum a cabinet with airflow. The Purple Pro’s 7200 RPM spindle runs warmer than the 5400 RPM options, and heat shortens service life.
RAID configuration where the footage matters. RAID 1 gives you a mirrored copy so a single disk failure does not erase the record; RAID 5 or 6 spreads risk but needs careful capacity planning and a rebuild window.
Frequently Asked Questions
What type of hard drive is best for security cameras?
A surveillance-rated HDD built for 24/7 continuous video writing, such as the WD Purple or Seagate SkyHawk, is the best type for security cameras. These drives are rated for 8,760 power-on hours a year, tuned for sequential write workloads, and built to tolerate the heat and vibration of a multi-bay recorder.
How long does 2TB last for security cameras?
A 2TB drive holds about 70 days for one 1080p camera on continuous H.264 recording, roughly 25 GB a day. With four 4MP cameras it drops to around 10 days. Switching to H.265 or motion-only recording roughly doubles or quadruples that window without changing the drive.
Is Seagate SkyHawk or WD Purple better?
Both are excellent 24/7 surveillance drives and the choice usually comes down to capacity and warranty. WD Purple offers a three-year warranty and strong AllFrame support; Seagate SkyHawk includes three years of Rescue data recovery services. Pick the capacity that fits your retention target rather than the brand.
Which is better for a security camera, a hard drive or an SSD?
For recording footage, a hard drive is better because cost per terabyte is far lower and sequential video writing does not need solid-state speed. An SSD makes more sense when a video management system runs analytics such as object detection or face search on the same machine.
Can I use a regular desktop hard drive in an NVR?
It will work on a small two-camera system, but desktop drives are rated for roughly 2,400 power-on hours a year rather than 8,760. On a recorder running continuously, they generate heat, lack vibration compensation, and commonly fail within 12 to 18 months.
What is the maximum hard drive size my NVR supports?
It depends on the model and its firmware. Older Hikvision and Dahua units often cap a bay at 8TB, while current recorders and most NAS-based video management systems accept larger capacities. Update the firmware first, then confirm the per-bay limit in the recorder menu before buying.
Are surveillance drives better than SMR drives for CCTV?
A CMR drive is the better choice because it writes tracks independently and avoids the read-modify-write penalty of SMR. SMR still records continuously because surveillance is a long sequential write and overwrite pattern, but it performs worse when a video management system reorganises files at the same time.
Do surveillance hard drives have a warranty?
Yes. The drives in this roundup carry three-year limited warranties, and the WD Purple Pro 8TB carries a five-year limited warranty. Check the terms, as some manufacturers require the drive to come through an authorised distributor or reseller for coverage to apply.
Final Verdict
The best hard drives for security camera recording depend on camera count more than brand. For a four to eight camera home NVR, the WD Purple 4TB is the pick we return to most often, with the longest review history here and the smoothest playback under load. Add capacity by moving up to the 6TB Purple in a multi-bay cabinet or the 8TB SkyHawk for a busy small business.
Go further up the line only when you have a reason. The WD Purple Pro 8TB exists for analytics workloads and carries the only five-year warranty in this roundup; the SkyHawk 4TB is the choice when included data recovery services matter more than anything else.
Whatever you choose, verify the drive before you trust it, add a UPS, and check your recorder’s per-bay capacity limit first. That last step alone has saved more footage than any brand decision. Our security robot picks cover the other end of the home security stack if you want to round out the system.