New to Cams and Surveillance Toys

[harleyfart]

What model cameras and dvr?

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Sony DH-DF-437W & DH-BF-647W cams

 

[alastairstevenson]

Your NVR of choice is now running a little more than twice that much from Amazon.

Yes, Amazon would be about twice that of sellers on Aliexpress.

On your QNAP, is it a SOHO or SMB model?
If SMB, are you using the 'LVM (Logical Volume Manager)' or classical scheme for the HDD volumes configuration?
If LVM is available to you - you can create a storage pool from which you can allocate a volume of arbitrary size, can even be dynamically sized.

 

[harleyfart]

I looked at Aliexpress. They wanted over $90 to ship. Seemed a bit exorbitant to me.
Yes, I can allocate storage pools on QNAP but am not wanting to destroy the data which is already there. And, it makes no sense, at least to me, to allocate just a portion of the NAS when available space is less than in DVR. It is the 469 Pro. I am looking at relocating data for better organization purposes and after that project is completed, the logical storage pool may be the ideal answer.
You have an excellent command of solutions, Alastair. Thank you!

 

[alastairstevenson]

$90 for shipping is certainly expensive.
This is the last NVR that I bought: http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Hikvision-NVR-16CH-Network-Video-Recorder-HDMI-NVR-Up-to-6MP-5MP-3MP-1000M-Engineering-project/2041536563.html

I am looking at relocating data for better organization purposes and after that project is completed, the logical storage pool may be the ideal answer.

OK, so you are in the position of having to safely backup the entire QNAP and start the setup from scratch to gain access to the LVM capabilities. Quite a scary prospect, but with a good end-point.
But if you do decide to do that, may be best to wait a month or so until the new QTS 4.2 is out, which adds volume snapshots to LVM, but which does require an initialise / full reinstall to make use of.

 

[harleyfart]

$90 for shipping is certainly expensive.
This is the last NVR that I bought: http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Hikvision-NVR-16CH-Network-Video-Recorder-HDMI-NVR-Up-to-6MP-5MP-3MP-1000M-Engineering-project/2041536563.html


OK, so you are in the position of having to safely backup the entire QNAP and start the setup from scratch to gain access to the LVM capabilities. Quite a scary prospect, but with a good end-point.
But if you do decide to do that, may be best to wait a month or so until the new QTS 4.2 is out, which adds volume snapshots to LVM, but which does require an initialise / full reinstall to make use of.

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Yes, sir! That is correct. I created volume with max HDD capacity. 12TB on RAID 5, yielding 8TB useable. I can go in and allocate smaller capacities with logical pools. I just don't see any reason to do so when NAS has less available capacity than DVR at this moment. I've loaded up the NAS with backups of all my devices: 5 [soon to be 6] desktop PCs; 7 laptops; & 3 tablets, leaving about 1 TB available. I prefer more than that.

One feature of the QNAP is an app that is designed specifically for IP surveillance cameras. App comes with 'licensing' for 2 IP cams. You have to buy licenses for monitoring more than 2 cams. My cams are not IP.
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I think I was looking at the POE version of NVR. That would explain price difference. Have no idea where the $90+ shipping charge originates. Not sure how I would make an NVR like this work with my analog system. It would be really sweet having a redundant DVR without all the cabling headaches of coax. I would not mind running a CAT6 from a switch to it if that would do the trick.

 

[alastairstevenson]

Not sure how I would make an NVR like this work with my analog system

Your DVR would have to be offering out encoded video streams in order to be able to use another device such as an NVR or QNAP Surveillance Station to also record them in another location.
I have no idea if your specific DVR does that - maybe others can comment - but if like many Hikvision NVRs, the DVR has good ONVIF support, you might be able to query it's capabilities using the 'ONVIF Device Manager' tool as per my earlier post in this thread. If it does offer 'receivers' then it opens up some possibilities.
Surveillance Station on the QNAP NAS could record any offered RTSP video streams, and has the ability to manage the maximum disc space used or the length of time recordings are kept.
But at $60 per extra channel licence over the base 2 that can be expensive.

 

[harleyfart]

Your DVR would have to be offering out encoded video streams in order to be able to use another device such as an NVR or QNAP Surveillance Station to also record them in another location.
I have no idea if your specific DVR does that - maybe others can comment - but if like many Hikvision NVRs, the DVR has good ONVIF support, you might be able to query it's capabilities using the 'ONVIF Device Manager' tool as per my earlier post in this thread. If it does offer 'receivers' then it opens up some possibilities.
Surveillance Station on the QNAP NAS could record any offered RTSP video streams, and has the ability to manage the maximum disc space used or the length of time recordings are kept.
But at $60 per extra channel licence over the base 2 that can be expensive.

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No luck with ONVIF Device Mgr app. I configured to target DVR. No receivers found at DVR IP address.
Yes, licensing very expensive, imo.
QNAP does "transcoding on the fly" with video playback on files from DVR.

 

[alastairstevenson]

No receivers found at DVR IP address.

Well that's a pity. It might have been an interesting facility to make use of for your recording duplication.

 

[harleyfart]

Well that's a pity. It might have been an interesting facility to make use of for your recording duplication.

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Thank you for all you advice! You really opened my eyes to what is possible. Now, all that is necessary is to educate myself on how it all works together.
Thank you again!