Extended Storage for DVRs Examined

Intransa and Pivot3 continue to market aggressively their storage solutions. One major positioning difference is that Intransa is focusing more heavily on small camera count deployments and upgrading DVRs. Specifically, they have a relatively new offering called the StarterBlock [link no longer available] that starts as low as 2TB - 4TB. It's an interesting approach especially now since customers are going to push to extend the life of their existing systems. This can help hybrid DVR manufacturers in their arguments to keep their products, add in IP/megapixel cameras and simply add the additional storage to the Intransa storage array. The big challenge/alternative to Intransa will be the use of low-cost NAS arrays - the type of consumer devices that you may use personally. These NAS frequently offer RAID and can provide 4TB for around $1,000 in contrast to Intransa where a similar solution would be closer to $5,000. Certainly, Intransa provides more in terms of scalability, throughput, manageability, etc. The question, though, is it worth the extra cost for you?