Where and how to store security camera footage?

Where and how to store security camera footage is usually depends on the scale of the video surveillance project , the way you are using to record the video and how long you want to keep the recordings .

If there are only few IP cameras, say 2~3 IP cameras for example, and you don’t need to keep the recordings for the month, usually using SD card which is installed in the camera is enough. Let’s set one channel 1080P IP camera for example. If using continuous recording, one H.265 1080P camera with 2Mbps bit rate usually will take 21.6GB storage. Thus, if using 256M SD card and doing continuous recording, it can record the video for nearly 12 days. However if using motion detection recording, the recording days will expand longer than 12days.

If there are more than four cameras, even up to 128 cameras, users can use NVR or CVR to install the recordings. Set 4pcs of H.265 1080P IP camera, each with 2Mbps bit rate for example. If using continuous recording, 4pcs of 1080P IP cameras recording for 30days will take 10.37TB. In this way, preparing 1pc of 4ch NVR which is equipped with one 16T hard disk or two hard disks,each with 8T capability is enough. About how to calculate the video storage, please use the tool: https://www.daxunview.com/video-recording-storage-calculator.html

However if there are hundreds or thousands cameras which need to managed and recorded, in this way video management software with centralized recording storage is needed. User can use VMS software to manage those cameras in one platform, and record those surveillance videos in its centralized storage servers. In this case, we sincerely advise you to use an open platform architecture platform, so that with the expansion of the project scale in the future, the system also can be expanded infinitely.

Take the video surveillance management system SVMS Pro as an example. The platform adopts a modular design and a master-slave open architecture. It allows that one master control server can be equipped with any number of slave/sub servers to do streaming media distribution and video recording storage. 1+N Master-slave centralized storage architecture allows users to meet long time recording storage of expanding video channels by increasing the installation of storage sub-servers. Thus the platform can be scaled as the business needs evolve from hundreds to the thousands of channels.