How Long Does Your 2 TB Drive Record Motion?

[SB_Jim 1]

Well, I'm happy to say that I've leaned the answer to that question for my Swann NVR w/ 6 bullet cams each on motion (30 fps). I was a bit concerned about the many false motion events that are recorded. Many shadows from moving plants & trees during the day, and flying bugs & "stuff" during the night. By tomorrow I should have "consumed" my 2 TB drive after 5 weeks and a couple of days. I'm very pleased with that.

 

During the next month or so I plan to pursue looking into a PIR to control a couple of my cams - so that events are really "motion" events that I'd actualy interested in viewing.

 

What's your experience?

[shockwave199 0]

If you drop the fps to 15, you'll go even further. Something to consider.

[MaxIcon 0]

If your cameras have a bit rate setting, your recording time will depend on how long you record and the bit rate, not fps or resolution. Lower fps will give better quality at a given bit rate.

 

So, 4096 kb/s is 512 kBytes/sec, or 31 MB/minute. Call your 5 weeks+ 38 days, which gives about 53 GB/day on a 2TB drive, or 9GB/camera/day average for 6 cams. At 4096 kb/s, this would be 290 minutes per cam, or nearly 5 hours. The numbers will be different if your bit rate is different.

 

Some cams will see a lot more motion than others, of course, but this can help predict what your HD usage will be.

[MR2 0]

3mp@15fps on 24/7 we generate 1.8Gb Per hour Per Camera

[MaxIcon 0]

That's with each camera set at 4096kb/s, right? MP and fps don't matter if your bitrate is fixed.

 

For variable bit rates, it depends on how they designed the software - some cap the bit rate and reduce it when possible, while others increase it as there's more activity, fps, whatever.

 

4096 kb/s is 1.8GB/hour.

[MR2 0]

I don't know, I don't play with the bitrate setting to be honest, I've had a poke and it seemed to make very little difference so I left it