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Seagate · Surveillance drive · ST12000VE003

Seagate SkyHawk AI 12TB

This one's for camera recorders. Seagate sells it as a surveillance drive, and the ratings on its datasheet are written with CCTV in mind.

Capacity
12 TB
Recording
CMR
Speed
7,200 rpm
Warranty
5 years
Workload
550 TB/yr
Failure rate
No failure data

Good for

  • A CCTV recorder (NVR or DVR)
  • 5 years' warranty

Not for

  • A NAS (Seagate gives it no NAS rating)
  • A desk or bedroom (7,200 rpm is the louder class)

Updated 27 Oct 2026 · Method 2.0

Is the SkyHawk AI 12 TB right for you?

Got a CCTV box to fill? That's its home. It turns up when you sort everything by price per TB, which is why it's labelled here. In a NAS you'd be running it outside what Seagate rates it for, and for an array you want a drive that's rated for one. Five years of warranty is the other draw, and on a drive you'll leave spinning for most of a decade that's worth having.

Watch out for

It isn't a NAS drive, and Seagate gives it no NAS bay rating. Building an array? Get a NAS or data-centre line, which comes with the rating. Being 7,200 rpm, it's in the noisier, warmer class of drive, and you'll want it somewhere you don't sit.

Backblaze doesn't run enough of these for a failure rate we'd publish. Seagate's datasheet puts it at 28 dB idle and 32 dB seeking. Power draw is 6.3 W idle and 7.8 W working on Seagate's figures, or 55 kWh a year if it spends the whole year idling.