I have a Supercircuits Black DVR model H.264 with 16 cameras. 4 cameras are recording continuously the rest are motion activated. I think the frames/ sec has been set to 4, but Im not positive.
The HDD is holding on average two months of video. I am being asked to find a way to store the video, even if its on another device, for two years.
I am trying to do this without replacing the whole system.
I called Supercircuits, their first option was to use an external USB drive to backup the video. I found that the external HDD are not compatible. After telling Supercircuits this they told me to save it to a flash drive then move it to the external drive.
After trying the flash drive I found that the DVR will not allow me to back up more that 60 minutes at a time, no matter how large the flash drive.
I tried on my own using the remote client software to save the video directly to a computer. I am able to save 24 hours at a time this way.
I called Supercircuits back again and they kept telling me I can backup the whole DVR using USB. I finally got the tech to try to backup a DVR himself and he agreed it can not backup the whole DVR.
The tech's last suggestion was to remove the hard drive and clone it.
The only way I see to clone this drive is to shut down the DVR every two months, remove the HDD, plug it into a cloning device, then put it back together.
I have found cloners for about $150. I would need 12 HDDs to save two years so that would be a total of around $2,000. And I would have to remove the HDD every 2 months.
I am not considering this as an option.
There has to be a better way to back up the video.