Storage is the component that is neglected, and the one that fails first. A video surveillance medium records continuously, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
SD card or hard drive?
A microSD card placed in the camera can provide a temporary solution for an isolated spot or act as a buffer in case of a network outage. It has an obvious limitation: if the camera is stolen or destroyed, the images go with it.
As soon as there are two cameras, or as soon as archiving really matters, recording must be done on a surveillance hard drive placed in the NVR, safe and out of reach. Never use a desktop drive: it is not designed for continuous writing and will fail within a few months.
How many TB to plan for?
Orders of magnitude for thirty days of archiving with motion detection recording:
Cameras
4 MP
8 MP / 4K
2 cameras
2 to 4 TB
4 to 8 TB
4 cameras
4 to 8 TB
8 to 16 TB
8 cameras
8 to 16 TB
16 to 32 TB
These values roughly double with continuous recording rather than motion detection. However, they decrease significantly with WizSense cameras, which only record human or vehicle presence instead of reacting to foliage and light changes.
What happens when the storage is full?
Recording loops and overwrites the oldest data. The drive therefore never truly fills up: its capacity determines your archiving depth.
Need a specific surveillance hard drive? Write to us at info@securishop.be: we will order it with your recorder and deliver it installed.
