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Western Digital · Surveillance drive · WD34PURZ

WD Purple 3TB

A surveillance drive, made for CCTV recorders that write video all day, and WD gives it no NAS bay rating.

Capacity
3 TB
Recording
CMR
Speed
5,400 rpm
Warranty
3 years
Workload
180 TB/yr
Failure rate
No failure data

Good for

  • A CCTV recorder (NVR or DVR)

Not for

  • A NAS (WD gives it no NAS rating)
  • Heavy daily writes (180 TB a year rating)

Updated 27 Oct 2026 · Method 2.0

Should you buy the WD Purple 3 TB?

If you're filling a camera recorder, this is what it's made for. We list it because surveillance drives show up in any price-per-TB hunt. For a NAS array, though, you'd be running it off its rating.

Watch out for

No NAS rating from WD. For an array, pick a NAS line instead.

No Backblaze failure rate for this one. They don't run enough of them, if any, for a figure worth quoting.

Specifications

Each value links to the Western Digital page or datasheet it came from.

WD Purple 3TB specifications
Drive type Surveillance source for Drive type (documents.westerndigital.com, opens in new tab)
Capacity 3 TB source for Capacity (westerndigital.com, opens in new tab)
Spindle speed 5,400 rpm source for Spindle speed (westerndigital.com, opens in new tab)
Speed class 5400 class source for Speed class (documents.westerndigital.com, opens in new tab)
Recording technology CMR source for Recording technology (westerndigital.com, opens in new tab)
Cache 128 MB source for Cache (westerndigital.com, opens in new tab)
Interface SATA 6Gb/s source for Interface (documents.westerndigital.com, opens in new tab)
Form factor 3.5in source for Form factor (westerndigital.com, opens in new tab)
Max sustained transfer 175 MB/s source for Max sustained transfer (westerndigital.com, opens in new tab)
Workload rating 180 TB/yr source for Workload rating (westerndigital.com, opens in new tab)
MTBF / MTTF 1,000,000 hours source for MTBF / MTTF (documents.westerndigital.com, opens in new tab)
Warranty 3 years source for Warranty (westerndigital.com, opens in new tab)

Sources: westerndigital.com, documents.westerndigital.com