Saving Footage long term e.g. 6 months on an mix of DVRs

[Lindopski 0]

Hi

 

I have a bit of a dilemma at the moment, I have been asked if it is possible to save CCTV footage for six months at work. We have about 20+ DVRs here and they are scattered around the sites in various different locations, all secure but not all in one place.

The devices are a mixture of Dowshu 32 channel units, Avermedia 4,8,16 and 32 Channel units both standalone and rackmounted SA5000,SA6000 etc series

At the moment we are getting about a month or so depending on HDD in use, some more, some less.

We can view all of the devices remotely fine so maybe there is something in that procedure that will point me in a useful direction.

I am assuming some kind of NAS or raid maybe may need to be used or something along those lines.

 

Has anyone come across similar before at all and found a solution that would work.

 

Cheers

[tomcctv 187]

Hi you can with the avers in a number of ways 1 you can have the dvr dump all video to an external drive system before it re-writes but this can be expensive in drives. best way is with a CMS server 1 unit will store from all your units at 4 fps per camera (you need gold CMS for this) we have 4 holiday inn s recording on site and 3 months backup at head office (group office)

 

 

Dowshu. what ever you do with these units is going to be expensive we look after 2 120 system you can add raid to Dowshu (do you have rack system)

 

not delt with Dowshu direct for a while (no one seems to know which way the company is going at the moment)

they are members of the forum but not been on for a while.

[Lindopski 0]

Thanks for the reply Tom

 

To be honest we have so little Dowshu kit remaining now we may be able to replace the units if we can prove a decent solution using our Avermedia kit ( the majority of what we use here now anyway)

 

We have two or three of the little 4 channel Aver units - linux based things EB something or other I recall - think one is black plastic and two are blue metal jobbies

We have a whole pile of SA5000 series standalone units knocking around and I think three rackmounted SA6000 series units, most of the kit was bought around 2008 though we have bought some more recently - one of the rack mounts is about two weeks old.

Dont know if that makes any difference but thought Id mention it.

 

The CM3000 gold option sounds like a plan though, would it just be a case of connecting to all of the remote Avers, and recording all the data to the one server - I assume a fair few TB space would be required for such a server.

[tomcctv 187]

Hi. the old steel and plastic eb cant work with CMS but the SA will and does not matter what age.

 

for the places you do have the EBs its only 4 cameras it may be best to exchange them for the aver £99 ip 1.3mp and have your SA record them. then everything will be controlled via the CMS.

 

at 4 fps from each camera 10tb should be ok for a few months.

[Lindopski 0]

Hi Tom

 

Many thanks once again

10TB isnt much these days so that is pretty impressive - Ive probably got a couple of TB on my home PC. 4fps will also do us fine

 

I will have to do an audit and check on camera numbers attached to DVRs etc , one of the EB's only had 1 camera attached I recall so replacing with an IP cam should be a simple (ish) affair.

Excuse my ignorance but I assume external IP cams are now a possibility. I have only ever seen internal versions previously but I havent looked for ages I must admit.

 

I like the Aver kit and it doesnt give me any headaches apart from the odd dead HDD and the newer AV discs should eliminate that to an extent anyway.

 

Id best get out and do a bit of fact finding on our units - its a bit of a turmoil at the moment as some sites have proposed demolition so we may have spare cameras and maybe DVRs shortly anyway.

 

I think that a total Aver solution though is a good way to go.

Just have to convince the purse holders now - Q a few meetings etc with the suits