What are some cheap cloud based video storage services?
This is a great question!
I stumbled on a couple months and months ago, but can’t remember them now. Darn!
One feature that I am personally very interested in, is that some of them do live transcoding of video streams from one format to the other.
SmartTiles/ActionTiles only works with limited stream formats at this time, and it isn’t a core feature for us to sink a lot of resources into (for now!)… So a specific set of cloud / SaaS providers with transcoding would be super for us to be able to recommend.
It’s probably not exactly what you are looking for, but Amazon Cloud Drive has unlimited storage for $60 a year. Pictures and videos can also be viewed in their Prime Photos app. It’s OK. I have my Diskstation simply copy all the videos over as they are recorded.
(AMZ tries to parse them, but I now have thousands from just a month. They’ve identified a couple cars and 13 cats. They’ll never catch up. . . . )
Have you considered creating your own? Its very simple especially if you use plex on NAS and depending on what router you have it probably has usb 3.1 or 3.0 port for that.
I’ll probably use a NVR system, but would like to look into offsite video storage as well.
I did the math and decided to go with a Synology Diskstation and their Surveillance Station software. Has the benefit of integrating with Smartthings for motion detection.
The Diskstation can upload to many popular cloud storage services too (though you don’t need to use any of them for remote access).
Looking for something designed for video recording storage so it’s easy to find and view stuff.
I use my OneDrive account on top of NAS, 1TB and 200Gb a day. It came with my office 365 pro subscription ($119/yr).
No issues there and I use RAS 4096 encryption SHA 2 hash
That’s what I have setup with Synology’s Surveillance Station. Its NVR software. I can access it from anywhere. It has timeline viewing, etc. I have another process on the NAS sync the files to Amazon. They are also viewable there.
SS organizes them by camera and date (am&pm). That’s how they appear in Amz Cloud Drive. The prime photos app gives you additional viewing options. And AMZ’s servers are fast. If I’m just watching a few, I watch them on Amazon and not SS.
I have about 200 GB rotating on the NAS. But I just leave everything on Amazon for now. The sync only copies files up. It doesn’t delete them when they are deleted locally. (It can be configured to do either.)
We’ll see if they complain when I get a few terabytes uploaded. . . .
This seems pretty interesting, unlimited for $5/mo. Can you backup the video files to Amazon Cloud via FTP automatically from ST?
Via IFTTT you are able to along with 6 or 7 others.
AMZ has it’s own webservice API. It’s not FTP. Regardless, Synology has an app called Cloud Sync. It does it for you as soon as the files are created. It can sync files with Google Drive, AMZ Cloud Drive, Dropbox. . . . . It works very well.
The Synology UI and apps are generally great. Surveillance station is pretty good, though not perfect. It is a little processor intensive. I bought a new diskstation, a 216j, to run it.
https://www.amazon.com/Synology-DS216j-NAS-DiskStation/dp/B01BNPT1EG
4 cameras using SS for motion detection is using about 40% of the CPU. I wouldn’t try to run more than 8 on this little guy. I’d buy a more powerful model.
It can also get pricey. They give you 2 camera licenses. Additional licenses are about $50 each. (I buy them from some foreign website) . . .
You also have to buy hard drives. You can get by with one for a while if you are cloud syncing.
I have an old 211j that I use for file serving: work, music, photos, etc. . . . I’ve had it for at least 6 years. I store almost nothing on my local computers. Too risky. The Diskstation backs up my files to AMZ S3 and to Glacier storage. Those are super cheap services. . . . SurvStation was just too much of a processor hog for the old 211 to handle.
I have a separate box running Plex, since it was too much for the poor old diskstation.
I put the cameras and the surveillance Diskstation on their own switch. All that traffic is fairly isolated. The Cloud Syncing goes through the main router out. But that’s not a problem. I don’t come close to my bandwidth limits even if all 4 are recording. . . .
I don’t want to have to use a personal computer or server. Instead just a dedicated NVR device. Will probably use D-Link DNR-322L since I have D-Link cameras.
Have usb port on router? Put portable hd on it and depending on brand of hd it comes with nvr type software to use.
The Diskstation is much like that DLink, except that it can do much more. The DLink is a server, like it or not. It just can’t do much.
Which Disk Station are you using? Do you have to use the NVR216 ($600)? Or can you use the DS216play ($250) and add Surveillance Station?
You can use any Synology NAS. Which one you choose depends on how many cameras you’re using, and what frame rate/resolution they record at. I’m using a DS115J ($100 plus the cost of drives if you don’t have any lying around) because I only need a couple of cameras.
Synology has a calculator for this. https://www.synology.com/en-us/support/nvr_selector
And while it’s true that a Synology NAS isn’t a dedicated NVR, the software that handles cameras is the same software that Synology uses on their dedicated NVR boxes: https://www.synology.com/en-us/surveillance/7.2
There’s a great community integration that lets you use Surveillance Station cameras as motion detectors (and lots of other stuff too). Synology Diskstation & Cameras
For offsite cloud backup, I am considering Backblaze B2. They offer a Synology app, 10GB free storage and up to 5000 free upload/downloads per day. That’s plenty for me since I will keep using the Synology app/web login for viewing of my files. I’ll only use the offsite storage if my NAS were to be stolen in a breakin.
https://www.backblaze.com/b2/cloud-storage-pricing.html
I will report back when I give it a try. I already use Backblaze for my offsite backup of all my other devices and they have been flawless. (on a side note, if anyone is interested in Backblaze, here’s my referral link: https://secure.backblaze.com/r/005s98)
There are also Dropbox and other apps for Synology NAS. You can pick your favorite.
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As Norcal notes below, you choose the diskstation according to your need.
I noted in my post above that I use the 216j. I also have a 211j, but it was a little under powered. The 216play is more powerful. That might be even better. But the j was cheaper. At $169, it’s a bargain.
https://www.amazon.com/Synology-DS216j-NAS-DiskStation/dp/B01BNPT1EG
You should do some reading. See the reviews on Amazon. Read a little of the stuff on the Synology site. You’ll see why people are recommending it.
Synology makes a really good NAS (network attached storage) device. They have all sorts of packages that you can install. The UI is very intuitive. Most of their software is mature.
I could easily roll my own NAS using open source software, but I don’t. I really like the Synology products. And so do lots of other people, as you can see from some of the posts on this thread. . . .
Surveillance Station is just one of the packages you can install on most any of their NASs. They also produce commercial NVRs that run the same software.
You can read about it here.
https://www.synology.com/en-us/surveillance/7.2/overview
https://www.synology.com/en-us/dsm/6.0/features
I suggest doing some reading about these things. I fear that buying the dlink device would be throwing good money after bad, or so to speak.
Hello scott
I would refer you to use google cloud storage for any media you want like images or even huge files of video. Upto 15 GB with uptobox premium its free of cost and later that storage exceeds you have to pay charged monthy or you can prefer yearly plan, that would be at lower cost and best for safety purpose also.