Local Storage Manual Rev.1.0
6
Advantages of “Local Storage + FTP Server”solution:
1. Cost efficient. Compared to NVR solution, this solution is more budget friendly.
Nowadays there are many FTP hosting plans that are totally free of charge.
2. Easy to maintain. You don’t need to maintain the cloud FTP hosting by yourself –the
owner of the hosting would do it.
3. Save bandwidth. In the normal condition, the bandwidth is not used at all. The
bandwidth is only used when the system goes to failover mode or when downloading
needed video clips from the camera.
4. Easy to access. The camera’s local storage and FTP server can be accessed in many
ways and from different types of computers and operating systems.
5. Damage proof. When the local storage gets damaged or removed, the video recording
can still go on by using FTP server’s storage.
Disadvantages of “Local Storage + FTP Server”solution:
1. Risk of dropped frames. When the amount of data is big, there is a risk that
MicroSDHC cannot record them all in real-time speed, because it is not a hard disk. In
such case, some of the video frames may be discarded by storage system. However, the
video quality of each single frame is still excellent.
2. Risk of vandalism or theft. If the camera is within the reach of an intruder, there is a
risk that one could damage or steal the whole camera together with recordings in them.
In such case, all the video evidence would be lost.
3. Smaller storage space. Compared to large storages of NVR servers, the MicroSDHC
size is limited to 32GB and MicroSDXC size is limited to 2TB whereas the maximum
available MicroSDXC in the market is around 128GB. With the constant recording of
1Mbps video data, the MicroSDHC 32GB memory card would be full in 3 days
(MicroSDXC 128GB in 12 days), and then the oldest files would start to be overwritten.
Make sure to download the important videos before they are erased automatically.
4. Less User Interface Functions. Compared to powerful functions of NVR, the local
storage management interface is very basic.
5. File Access Depends on Network. While NVR-based solutions offer playback capability
to its local client regardless of network status, the download/playback capability of
camera’s local storage files depends on healthy network –if the network is temporarily
down, it is impossible to get any of the recordings from the camera.
6. Cloud FTP Uncontrollable. Theoretically, the third party FTP depends much on the
actions of its administrator. Should they accidentally remove files or suspend the service,
the evidence may be lost. Also there is a theoretical risk that unauthorized people might
get the chance to look at the video clips hosted in cloud FTP.
Considering advantages and disadvantages, the “local storage only + FTP server”solution is
suitable for similar projects as “local storage only”case, with more increased security
with additional cost.
