Affordable offsite backup hosting

[fred42 0]

Hi, new here, lots of good information.

 

I have not bought anything yet, I am in the early stages of designing a home video security system and can't seem to find information on a very basic concept. That is affordable offsite backup hosting of the captured images. Here is what I got so far:

 

Right now I have a standalone VHS based Piczel 5045 1 camera wired system that needs to be totally replaced.

 

1. I would have a 500GB DVR 4 camera system

2. I have Time Warner Cable high speed internet, connected to my Linksys router. I can upgrade to turbo for $10 a month if necessary.

 

I understand how to hook all this up and get remote internet viewing of the current and stored images on the DVR. My concern is that the DVR device can be stolen. I do not want to use one of the costly turnkey security hosting services. I simply want a hosting site that will let my DVR feed files to it and then let me access the files. With all the low cost file hosting services out there, is there one that would work for home security? Do the DVR based systems have the capability to periodically feed captured files to a host? Are there apps that could receive these stored files and allow intelligent viewing?

 

Besides offsite backup, this would let all remote viewing be done from the backup host. You could add a small amount of security by configuring the Router/DVR to only be out going.

 

thanks very much,

fred

[TipoFloe 0]

Hi, new here, lots of good information.

 

I have not bought anything yet, I am in the early stages of designing a home video security system and can't seem to find information on a very basic concept. That is affordable offsite backup hosting of the captured images. Here is what I got so far:

 

Right now I have a standalone VHS based Piczel 5045 1 camera wired system that needs to be totally replaced.

 

1. I would have a 500GB DVR 4 camera system

2. I have Time Warner Cable high speed internet, connected to my Linksys router. I can upgrade to turbo for $10 a month if necessary.

 

I understand how to hook all this up and get remote internet viewing of the current and stored images on the DVR. My concern is that the DVR device can be stolen. I do not want to use one of the costly turnkey security hosting services. I simply want a hosting site that will let my DVR feed files to it and then let me access the files. With all the low cost file hosting services out there, is there one that would work for home security? Do the DVR based systems have the capability to periodically feed captured files to a host? Are there apps that could receive these stored files and allow intelligent viewing?

 

Besides offsite backup, this would let all remote viewing be done from the backup host. You could add a small amount of security by configuring the Router/DVR to only be out going.

 

thanks very much,

fred

 

Why not look for a DVR that has FTP upload options and setup your own FTP storage server with an old PC?

[fred42 0]

That's a good idea about the DVR FTP feature. Is that what is meant by the phrase "Remote Network Backup"? I suppose I would use motion detection to produce smaller files and they would be uploaded as completed?

 

As for the server. I want it to be offsite, so I was considering godaddy.com storage products at about $2.49 a month for 100gb. Unfortunately, they do not offer a "keep only the newest 100GB" option and it would fill up and start rejecting files.

 

http://www.godaddy.com/email/online-storage.aspx?isc=bsdo2nfwa&ci=55861

 

Maybe I need to dial back on this remote backup thing and be happy with a onsite well hidden USB backup drive. The DVR is hidden pretty well too, but if they found it they would probably just yank all the cables out and take it, not knowing a USB backup drive was hidden elsewhere. Not sure if they do this, but I would want the DVR to start reusing older file space on the USB backup drive when it fills up just like it does on it's onboard disk drive.

[TipoFloe 0]

That's a good idea about the DVR FTP feature. Is that what is meant by the phrase "Remote Network Backup"? I suppose I would use motion detection to produce smaller files and they would be uploaded as completed?

 

As for the server. I want it to be offsite, so I was considering godaddy.com storage products at about $2.49 a month for 100gb. Unfortunately, they do not offer a "keep only the newest 100GB" option and it would fill up and start rejecting files.

 

http://www.godaddy.com/email/online-storage.aspx?isc=bsdo2nfwa&ci=55861

 

Maybe I need to dial back on this remote backup thing and be happy with a onsite well hidden USB backup drive. The DVR is hidden pretty well too, but if they found it they would probably just yank all the cables out and take it, not knowing a USB backup drive was hidden elsewhere. Not sure if they do this, but I would want the DVR to start reusing older file space on the USB backup drive when it fills up just like it does on it's onboard disk drive.

 

A cheaper alternative would be to use an external HDD via either USB 2.0 or E-Sata. Many DVRs come with e-sata expansion options, and most of them inculde USB 2.0 ports. All you need to do is to hunt for a DVR that has a real-time mirroring function which is capable of backing up to the external drives. You would then use a long USB or e-sata cable to run the cable to a hidden or locked external HDD.

 

When you think about real-time file upload backup via the network, think about its accessibility and time it would upload/download chunks of video that can end up in gigabytes and even terabytes. How long do you think it would actually take to upload these from a typical ADSL or cable modem speed? Consumer internet often offer 1mbit/s upload or slower, so when you calculate the recording data rate on your DVR and calculate your upload speed, then you can get a fairly accurate estimate if your back-up will be real-time or delayed due to the upload bottleneck. Moreover, since most data file formats are not made to be recognized with the time and date stamp, you will have to guess as to which files represent which time frame of recorded data. Today, on a 12mb/s download speed (typical cable modem), it should take about 1 hour for every 5 GB to download.

 

Though the file sizes have been trimmed down extensively, expect about 1 to 1.5GB for every hour of CIF real-time recording on a 4 channel H.264 compression DVR. In other words, in order for you to download and review 5 hours worth of video (which you are probably not sure if the video is contained within). Unless of course, the backup storage is local (like on a PC with FTP server setup somewhere in your residence or a backup HDD). So it would take you 2 hours to download 5 hours of video on an 8 channel DVR, 4 hours to download 16 channel DVR, and so forth, based on the same CIF real-time recording setup.

 

I know that the DVR manufacturers will eventually catch up and provide a self-sufficient remote backup solutions just like VGA, DVI and HDMI caught on. I know at least two manufacturers out there that offer built-in FTP upload solutions.

 

For the time being, this is how I would recommend you setup your system:

 

1. DVR and backup external HDD (granted that DVR has real-time backup). Long USB extension cable is commonly found. In case the DVR is stolen, some DVRs allow you to connect the backup drive directly to a PC and then view the recorded video immediately. The key advantage of this is that if you replace the DVR, then you can plug this right back into your DVR and use the drive.

2. DVR with built-in FTP upload or similar function, and build your own local FTP PC server (you can use pretty much any old PC for this and large enough HDDs). You would then upload directly via internal network, so upload and download, if necessary, would be much faster. The problem with this, is that the file system on your PC will not be the same as your DVR (typically Linux based), so the data file will be useless unless you can find a way to migrate the data from a FAT32/NTFS to ext2 or ext3 file system, depending on what type of Linux OS the DVR has.

3. Your original consideration, where you subscribe to a service and have that software upload the recorded data in their own proprietary format(?). I don't know the exact science behind this, so I don't know if they just relay the same raw data, or convert it into their own format... Anyway, you would most likely run into a similar problem.

 

Anyways, I know they are out there, so good luck. Remember, the simplest solution is sometimes the best solution.