Western Digital WD Purple Pro Surveillance HDD

Brand: Western Digital
Model: WD Purple Pro Surveillance HDD

$755–$835estimated range · from catalog price Sep 3, 2026

WD Purple Pro 18TB (WD181PURP) 3.5-inch SATA surveillance HDD, 7200 RPM, 512MB cache, 550TB/yr—built for 24/7 multi-bay NVR and analytics workloads.

Storage performance rankTop 63% of storage drives

TierWorkstation?

ReleasedMay 2021

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Capacity18 TB

TypeHDD

InterfaceSATA

Read speed272 MB/s

Form factor3.5

GixCore Editorial

Product overview

Western Digital introduced the Purple Pro family on May 18, 2021; this 18TB WD181PURP is the 3.5-inch SATA member built for smart‑video systems. It uses CMR recording with OptiNAND, spins at 7200 RPM, carries a 512MB cache, and is rated up to 272 MB/s. The line targets high‑uptime surveillance and analytics use with a 5‑year warranty and 2.5M‑hour MTBF. On our storage scale it’s a workstation‑tier HDD: it exists to ingest 24/7 multi‑stream video reliably with a high 550 TB/year workload rating and multi‑bay robustness. Ideal for NVRs, AI‑enabled recorders, and long‑retention archives where sequential write endurance matters. As of July 2026 it remains an active product.

Best for

mass storage

Official product specifications

Specifications

At a glance iEach dot represents a catalog model. Farther right means a higher measured value, not necessarily a better fit.Measured against the storage drives catalog

Current modelCatalog models

Capacity18 TB