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I have basically the same setup. Sounds like maybe there is a share/dataset/datapool problem. few questions: How big is the drive? how many shares do you have setup? did you set a quota for the dataset?

For what its worth, I changed my all 4 of my ports up in the 9000 range. Then I point my iVMS app to my dynamic IP under the address and the port to the SDK number.

I started a thread before about NVR issues with my Hikvisions. Thanks to all the folks that helped with the port forwarding issues. My basic setup is 2 cameras. I didn't wanna shell out the buck for a dedicated NVR. When and if I need the recorded footage, one camera at a time viewing from the web interface will be good enough. Also if I added cameras of a different brand, I didn't wanna be stuck with mismatched gear. So....... I have the two cameras into a POE switch running into my gateway. I was going to use an old Mac g4 (10.4. as the NFS server. I think I need to be on 10.5. Also I never really was able to figure out the NFS share and how to get it to mount properly. (project for another day) So I ended up loading NAS4FREE on a old Celeron chipped laptop. I am having issues getting the CD to mount and install to the HDD so I am running it off the CD. Some problems that I ran into, and would like to post so others don't waste their next weekend, are these: When setting up the network on the NAS4FREE machine, I had to manually tell it which NIC adapters to use. I selected the wired port first then the wireless as the optional. IDK why both but it seems to like it. Then going in and manually selecting the IP address. It defaults to 192.168.1.250, 255.255.255.0 and blank gateway and DNS addresses. I changed the IP, left the subnet alone, entered the default gateway and DNS addresses. BINGO, It now was assigned an IP. Without following those steps, I could not get the machine an assigned IP. Also I couldn't get it working via DHCP. Second issue was the storage. I have a 2TB Seagate external I bought for this project. Once I got the NAS machine up I formated to UFS and created a NFS mount point for the new drive. I was able to see it in the web interface of the camera. I would report the drive and its capacity but no available space. Tried to format via the camera and it said complete but it didn't actually do anything. Using the client software I tried the same thing and it reported an error. So I tried FAT, FAT32, NTFS and EXT formats for the drive thinking that it didn't like the UFS format. None of those methods would even report the drive. So back to UFS. Tried formatting through client, web (OSX, Win7 and Win XP) still nothing. Read and Re-read buellwinkles writeup on it and noticed on the screenshot that the file path was something like /volumes/public. The NAS4FREE was telling me the mount point was /mnt/NVRStorage. Turns out that I needed to add another directory to that. So I changed to /mnt/NVRStorage/cameras. BINGO!! It now was able to format. Currently I have one camera recording to the NAS drive via an OLD laptop. I am able to view recordings from the web interface, client app and both the iPad and iPhone apps. I really wish my knowledge of NAS4FREE / BSD/ Linux was better and I could have saved my weekend. I think however that I need to create 2 sub directories. One for each camera. When I try to format the same share with the other camera, it becomes unavailable on the first camera. Not a deal breaker. Just glad I am able to get it done. Sorry for the long winded post, but hopefully I will be of some use for someone else that doesn't want to buy a dedicated NVR and has an old machine sitting around collecting dust. I tried running the client on the laptop but it was just to resource heavy and it was running WAY to hot. Not sure whats going to happen when I run out of space, if it will automatically write over after a certain point or if I will have to manually erase it. Thanks again for all the help from everyone that has given advice

Well that's not good news.....

Alternate Linux distro? You mean like a Linux box or something? I'm sure you can I think most guys here that are running some form of NAS is because of the overhead that PC software based DVR uses. Plus the fact that the camera has decent NVR capabilities as it is. Problem is that the camera needs an NFS share to write to and if I'm not mistaken not a lot of standalone NAS boxes support NFS. So hence the need for a Linux setup, or Windows Server or something like that.

Glad I could help. My head was hurting trying to figure it out so hopefully I saved you some headaches. NAS4FREE is the first time I got away from the Mac or Windows interface.

I bring up Disks>ZFS>Datasets>Dataset Then either create one or edit Originally I had the Reservation set to .90TB I showed the disk was almost full even right after formatting. I kept getting emails that there was a HDD failure and figured it was maybe because I ran out of disk space. So I changed the .90 to Quota. Seems to be working.

I just rebooted one of my cameras and yes it pointed right back to the share. VLC is free and will play the .mp4 files created by the cameras.

The C2D box should be fine. I'm running NAS4FREE off an old Celeron laptop. 2tb external HDD. Eventually I'll build a small box to stuff drives in to take advantage of speed. Currently the drive is a USB 3.0 but the port is only 2.0.

Yea. That will happen. It seems the cameras get confused easy. I had issues with the NAS rebooting and the camera not finding the share again. Even though clearly the shares will still there and the drive was still "formatted". Since you have to reformat anyway, why don't you give the quota thing a shot. I have no reasoning behind it, but thats how I have mine setup and it seems to be stable. BTW I am running NAS4FREE not FREENAS. I had issues getting the FREENAS to load and boot properly. (probably user error)

How do you have the drive space partitioned? I had the same issue. I think I figured it out. Under Dataset I had the Reservation set to .90TB. I figured I would use half the drive for one camera and half for the other. Every time the NAS would reboot or some other kind of network hiccup it would do just what you said. I changed the Reservation to blank and set the .90TB in the Quota. So far so good. 4 days and still up. I was barely getting 12-16 hrs before.

NAS4FREE, external 2TB HDD, and an old laptop. I have had some bugs, but I think I finally got it figured out. I am running two cameras to the single NAS. When it works it is working fine. I think my issue was the way I had the drive partitioned. I have since changed it and so far so good. I think it was also that the laptop was shutting down. The batter is shot so IDK if that has anything to do with it. Where are you in the process, maybe I can help.......

I've looked a bit but most posts regarding remote viewing seem to involve a NVR. SETUP: 2 Hikvision Bullets 1 zyxel POE Switch 1 Verizon FIOS Router (actiontec) 1 Airport Extreme Both cameras are viewable from my home network. I have a 3 no-ip.com ddns hosts setup. I just want to be able to log into each camera. Cant seem to figure out how as all my efforts point to the same camera. My questions are these 1) Do I setup each camera to report to its own address ie... Cam1.no-ip.biz and Cam2.no-ip.biz using the built in DDNS tab or 2) just one ddns pointing to the router and leave the DDNS on the cameras off. or 3) do I need to do all three? I assume option 1 I need to change the ports. Which I tried but it seems to be blocked. I believe that I have the ports forwarded correctly but I could be wrong. I only changed the SDK port on the camera form 8000 to 8001 and 8002. When I forward them in the router and put in my IP:8001 it gives me an error. I think I got in to deep changing ports and what not now I can get to the cameras and am getting a abnormal netowrk

Yea. Photographer by trade so Mac is my OS of choice. But I cut my teeth on an 8088 IBM clone. Hikvision is not really Mac friendly. I run XP on VMware. Couldn't even find the cameras at first. Had to change VMware from NAT to Bridged to get everything on the same subnet. But got that working. Oh and the middle of all this there were issues when I started plugging in Apple Airports to my ZyXEL switch. Drug the network to a crawl, if it would work at all. Everything seems to be OK now. I have the iVMS-4200 running on the desktop, and iVMS-4500 on the iPad with no issues so far. I think the 4200 client for Mac is buggy. I get a lot of spinning beach balls but over all it is ok. Next step is to FreeNAS an old laptop I have to use a 2TB external as a NAS to dump the cameras to. I tried running the software but its such a resource hog that it makes it unusable. Again, thanks everybody for the help. Both on this thread and all the others that I have scoured the past few weeks when it came to buying gear. I know so much more now, yet still feel so uneducated in this field. Dave

Success I think I was confusing the SDK port with the HTTP port at first. I still get an "abnormal network" when I try to access the camera via web browser and do not include the port number. Not a big deal however. It will give me the login screen, it will just not let me login. Thanks Guys

Ill give that a shot. I did have all the ports that you mentioned forwarded. maybe the problem was that some of the ports were the same on both cameras. I will change them as you list and report back. thanks

on the cameras you mean? Is it necessary?

Yes. That is done. I just changed the .202 camera HTTP port to 82. I can now get to both cameras. However when I try to access the camera directly from my network, it will give me the camera login page but says abnormal network. I thnkk this has to do with the web port not being 80. Does that make sense? Just did some more testing before I hit post.. if I enter the local IP followed by the modified http port I can get in. It seems that I can't without it as it gives me an "abnormal network" error So it looks like it was an issue with the same http port. I was under the assumption that it was the 8000 port that I had to address and not the http port. Perhaps because I am using the web interface? IDK Looks like it is all working though. Thanks for the help BTW if I have something wrong please let me know

Each camera has been changes 192.168.1.201 and 202. I want the ports to be 8001 for the .201 camera and 8002 for the .202 camera Do I just change the SDK port in the camera config tab? Can the other ports remain the same for both cameras or do they all have to be unique? When I type my verizon IP address in the url bar and :8001 or :8002 at the end it times out Should I be setting the ddns on the cameras also? ---EDIT--- If i put my public IP in and :80 at the end I can get into one of the cameras and a port scan shows both 8001 and 8002 open