Find the hard drive size your security camera recorder will need based on the number of cameras in your system, their resolution, and compression type. The number of days and hours per day will determine the longest that you can store that video before your recorder overwrites the old footage to make space for the new video it records.
If you’re considering buying or upgrading your security camera system, contact us here at CCTV Security Pros. We have surveillance professionals ready to answer your questions, provide tech support, or help with your installation weekdays from 9 am to 6 pm EST.
Note: Cameras by CCTV Security Pros can be programmed to record video only when they detect motion or a change in the frame. This can greatly extend the amount of video you can record. Read more about smart recording & playback here.
Hard drive storage size is one of the most overlooked considerations when planning your security camera system. Determining the right storage size for your video recorder can be tricky, especially if you're running multiple cameras or have high-resolution 1080p or higher video recording capabilities on each individual camera.
Our security camera storage calculator will help determine just how much hard drive space you'll need based on these factors.
The more cameras you have, the more video footage your recorder will need to store. If you’d like to store more days worth of footage and have multiple cameras, you may need more storage. Our security camera hard drive calculator will allow you to create a customized storage plan based on the number of cameras you have.
A video security camera records images at a specific frame rate; this is the number of frames taken per second (FPS). The higher the frame rate, the smoother videos will appear to play. This also means more storage is needed to capture video with a higher FPS. Our security camera storage calculator makes it easy to find the right storage capacity for the FPS of your camera or recording setting.
The total hours per day that your security cameras are recording can also impact the amount of storage you need. So, if you'll be recording your cameras 24/7, you will need a much bigger storage capacity than if you'll only be recording during business hours. Our security camera hard drive calculator can help you figure out how much storage you'll need based on the hours per day your cameras will be recording.
The more days you plan on storing your security camera footage, the more storage space you will need. Depending on your surveillance needs, this security camera storage calculator can help estimate how much storage you'll need for a specific number of days. For business surveillance, the standard is 30 days of footage, but if you need more than that it's easy to use the calculator for any number of days.
Higher resolution cameras capture more detail because their video is composed of more pixels per frame. For example, an HD 1080p (1920 x 1080) high-definition security camera produces video footage that is approximately twice as large as that produced by standard definition 720p (1280 x 720) security cameras. 4K security cameras record in resolutions of 3840 x 2160, meaning that their image quality and file size is about 4 times that of HD 2080p video.
The compression type of your security camera is how efficiently it encodes video footage into a digital format. Better image formats can record the same video with smaller file sizes. Check the compression type of your security cameras before purchase and test them on our security camera hard drive calculator to get the right storage capacity for your needs.
Use our security camera storage calculator to determine how much hard drive space you need in your security camera system.
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