Cloud Backup for a NVR Beginner

I am pretty new to home security (I just got a home) but I would consider myself fairly computer competent and somewhat IT competent. I wanted to build out a PoE setup with 4-5 TrendNet cameras so that I don't have to do any battery maintenance and I won't need to worry about my WiFi signal at each corner of the house. That part I think I have mostly figured out. I am going to have a computer in my basement with hard drives to record to. I also want to have an off site backup that needs to be almost instantaneous for the obvious reasons.

My question is essentially what would you recommend for the recording/syncing settings on the local computer and then the off site cloud storage? I don't really need a service like Angelcam because I don't need to watch the cameras from a browser or on a mobile platform. I just need a video storage service, I won't be using them to monitor the house on a day to day basis, just if something should happen I want it recorded. Do you break up the recordings into <5 min chunks that are saved to a Dropbox folder?

Any advice you guys have would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Since you mentioned TrendNet, here's the sizing tool.

http://www.trendnet.com/products/camerahelper/

Just take note that having 5 Cameras 720P HD @ 2048kbps will required around 20Mbps of bandwidth constantly sending data to your NVR and to your offsite server.

If your connection is not fast enough, or your offsite server limits the file transfer speed to it, you'll never be able to do it fast enough to keep up.

Using non integrated services will mean you'll have to handle the files manually. e.g. no timeline to search (have to look at individual file name), click files 1 by 1 to playback, no multicam simultaneous view, deleting of old files off manually, etc.

To recording these 5 cameras, you'll need over 800GB of storage per week, or around 3.2TB per month or roughly about 5GB per hour.

Dropbox FREE have around 2GB of space. Which means it'll be enough to record 24 mins ?

Ok, that's good to know. I wasn't well aware of integrated packages when I first made the post but am becoming more familiar with them. I think the data upload to the off-site storage is probably going to be a bottleneck, especially in parallel with the day to day internet use.

If you were going to start from scratch and include 5 cameras with off-site storage is there a solution you could recommend? I don't mind buying all the hardware/software piecemeal but maybe some all-in-one station is a better option.

Check out geovison they now have a line of cameras and a service that does off site storage. how much off site storage time do you need? If you use one of the services that stores video for a day or two that may be enough also motion detection will cut down the amount of storage you may need.

Hi. TrendNet Do a 8 way NVR just use one of them for offsite storage.

Listen to the expert.

tomcctv have over 30 years of experience. " title="Applause" />

Just make sure your bandwidth is sufficient to do live recording at the bitrate and more.

Listen to the expert.

tomcctv have over 30 years of experience. " title="Applause" />

 

Just make sure your bandwidth is sufficient to do live recording at the bitrate and more.

Is it not the same as going to cloud ?

I would still recommend NVR local than going to cloud.

But here we go another person who attracts other people's post for no reason

And in turn taking a post off topic.

Hi. TrendNet Do a 8 way NVR just use one of them for offsite storage.

Just make sure your bandwidth is sufficient to do live recording at the bitrate and more.

Referring to the offsite storage.

Anyway, I don't have that many year of experiences and I might be wrong.

Perhapes there's way to do offsite storage without sufficient bandwidth that I've yet to know about.

Hi. TrendNet Do a 8 way NVR just use one of them for offsite storage.

Just make sure your bandwidth is sufficient to do live recording at the bitrate and more.

Referring to the offsite storage.

 

Anyway, I don't have that many year of experiences and I might be wrong.

Perhapes there's way to do offsite storage without sufficient bandwidth that I've yet to know about.

Is sending data to offsite NVR .... Not called offsite storage

Or is it not the same as what cloud does.

I don't understand why you are trying to make things personal I was only replying to a post with a good work around that is done with 1000s of systems around the world .... Is it not one of the benifits of IP cameras ?

Instead of doing personal making the post personal ... Explain why it can't be done.

 

Is sending data to offsite NVR .... Not called offsite storage

 

Or is it not the same as what cloud does.

 

I don't understand why you are trying to make things personal I was only replying to a post with a good work around that is done with 1000s of systems around the world .... Is it not one of the benifits of IP cameras ?

 

Instead of doing personal making the post personal ... Explain why it can't be done.

I never said it can't be done and it's never personal. You are just reading it the wrong way. I even say listen to you, the expert.

My exact words.

Just make sure your bandwidth is sufficient to do live recording at the bitrate and more.

Based on my limited experience compared to yours, I understand that you'll need sufficient bandwidth to do live recording or send any recording offsite through your broadband connection.

If the 5 cameras is constantly using ard 20Mbps for video streaming, you'll need a minimum of 20Mbps to stream the video to an offsite server or NVR. If you don't have 20Mbps, your NVR will record choppy video, or your offsite server will always lagged behind in the synchronisation of data.

If the offsite NVR/Server supports edge recording, you'll need more than 20Mbps for every min of recording that was done if and when the internet connection is disconnected. Based on my limited experience, I've yet to encounter any connection with 100% uptime guaranteed. So you'll just have to buffer for that.

If the user is also gonna view live video at the same time, he'll need another up to 20Mbps to stream the video feed to each of his device unless the trendnet system support proxy stream server like what some other equipment does.

Now, unless the internet connection is solely used for this purpose, he'll need additional bandwidth on top of these 40Mbps+ to enable users of the internet to be able to actually surf the internet.

Then again, I could be wrong. There could be some technology that I didn't know about that can transmit more data at speed faster than what the ISP provided.

Maybe I am playing fast and loose with the terminology, I am not very familiar with home security. I am looking for a way to record the video onto a local hard drive in my basement then back that hard drive up somewhere not on my property. It doesn't have to be recorded directly to an off-site facility. It seems from this discussion that will require a lot of bandwidth and make using the internet for other activities difficult.

What is the typical set up for residential PoE/IP cameras? It seemed to me that one of the biggest flaws in any personal surveillance system was that the base station or recording medium could be tampered with thus rendering the entire system useless. I was curious if there was a practical way to protect my recordings other then having a >500 down/500 up internet connection or using a bunker.

What is the typical set up for residential PoE/IP cameras? It seemed to me that one of the biggest flaws in any personal surveillance system was that the base station or recording medium could be tampered with thus rendering the entire system useless. I was curious if there was a practical way to protect my recordings other then having a >500 down/500 up internet connection or using a bunker.

If your recorder geting stolen won't allow you to sleep; the easieast router is to have two NVRs in the house, one in plain sight, the other one well hidden. You can record all the cameras on both NVRs, if someone breaks in your house and steals the NVR, he won't bother lookinf for another one.

Yes, you can store the video somehwere else too using the internet connection, but you would need a very good connection at home with enough bandwidth to handle all the video streams; and another one in your host/wherever you want to keep your backups.

Well, if you are that paranoid, you'll have to asses the risk to determine what is more important as I believe you have limited budget.

Just take into consideration the basic of physical security. DDDR - Deter, Detect, Delay and Respond

http://www.guardcorp.com.au/advice/deter-detect-delay-and-respond-security-tips-every-business-should-consider/

Respond is what is most often neglected by people.

Without any respond, all these measures are pretty useless. If there's a high probability of a break in, you should be looking at a alarm system on top of your CCTV system.

When a siren goes off with pending guards responding, the intruder would be less include to take his time to search for a recorder in your house if you hid the first one well.

Otherwise with time on his hand, he could take his own sweet time and locate all your 10 recorders in your house.

Just bear in mind that offsite recording, internet connection can be disabled from outside your house.

Backup cellular data connection, Wireless Jammer will take care of that.

CCTV ? Ski-mask will render facial recognition useless.

Cutting off the power will also render the system useless. UPS ? How long are you going to factor in without any predetermine period for respond ?

The intruder could cut off power to your system the first day you go on holiday, and break in a couple of days later.

Alternative Recording ? It won't have any recording if the power had been already cutted off.

Not forgetting that easily available laser could damage the camera sensorchip at a distance and some system don't even detect that as a video loss and raise an alert.

Understandably, these are the more extreme measures to consider and might not apply to most people.

What you would want to do is make your place appeared to have strong security measures in place so that your neighbor house looks more inviting.

Thank you all, this is good input and advice. It sounds like uploading all the video off-site is probably unrealistic so I will probably just stick with the PoE cameras and a base station. I think I got ahead of myself having fun trying to put together an impenetrable security system when in reality it would still have issues and it's unnecessary. Thanks again for all the help.