A Synology NAS drive was the missing link in my home security system

Safety digicam footage is simply pretty much as good as what you are able to do with it. Most cloud-connected cameras supply movement detection-based clips and, in some circumstances, just a few further days of recording locked behind a subscription service. Often, if you happen to want further options or long-term video retention, the very best go-to answer is an IP digicam paired up with a community video recorder to retailer movies on a tough drive. Nevertheless, there’s a greater manner to do that.

We’ve beforehand talked about NAS drives and the way a few of the best Network Attached Storage devices available on the market go above and past easy storage-related use circumstances. Synology makes a few of the most feature-packed client and business-grade NAS options available on the market. Most of them additionally ship with a built-in safety package deal that may match most entry-to-mid stage NVR choices.

A couple of months in the past, I switched to a Ubiquiti mesh Wi-Fi solution. I even documented my journey of constructing out a whole house wi-fi answer with its personal built-in safety answer primarily based on Unifi Shield. Nevertheless, a few months in and some robberies down the road later, I began discovering the Ubiquiti Dream Machine Professional’s safety answer a bit limiting. So, because the resident nerd, I did the plain factor — I appeared for an additional, nerdier answer.

The Ubiquiti Dream Machine Professional features a single exhausting drive slot for storing video footage. Whereas this ought to be sufficient for many customers, accidents do occur. I used to be not too long ago caught unaware that the exhausting drive in my safety system had crashed, and the system wasn’t recording any video in any respect. Since I hoped to catch a quantity plate down the road, the lack of footage was a severe concern. Lack of footage in a security camera system was an absolute no-go for me.

Whereas changing the exhausting drive would have been the simple possibility, I wished to keep away from the state of affairs sooner or later and determined to spin off the digicam feeds to my Synology NAS drive. Fortunately, I had a spare NAS drive with a duo of eight terabyte drives able to go for the job.

My alternative of software program answer for managing the a whole lot of gigabytes of digicam footage was Synology Surveillance Station, and getting began with it was a cinch.

The safety suite permits you to plug in cameras from a variety of manufacturers into the recording app however goes one step additional by permitting each ONVIF-enabled cameras and even RTSP streams to plug into the safety suite. This ensures that until you might be fully locked right into a proprietary ecosystem like Google Nest or Arlo, there’s an excellent probability that your digicam might be suitable. In case you’re acquainted with BlueIris on Home windows, Synology’s Surveillance Station will seem acquainted to you.

Within the case of Ubiquiti’s cameras, I needed to login into every digicam on my community and swap modes in order that the cameras can output a password-protected RTSP stream. Getting began with Synology Surveillance Station is very simple and solely requires you to pick your make of digicam, put in important data like IP addresses, a consumer title, and password, and also you’re carried out.

Issues get much more attention-grabbing from there. For me, the largest benefit was having all my safety footage on a RAID array that provides a little bit of redundancy towards exhausting drive failures. Nevertheless, I’m additionally backing up the encrypted footage information to cloud storage as an added security measure. If you’d like a extra hands-off strategy, Synology Surveillance Station can combine with the corporate’s personal C2 cloud backup offering with fee plans beginning off on a per-camera foundation.

Additionally learn: Here’s how I consolidated my smart home using Home Assistant

As somebody who has been more and more aiming for native management of my linked house, the concept of beaming up safety digicam feeds as plain video from my home to an unknown server has all the time been irksome. Utilizing the Synology NAS as a storage possibility ensures that no one else has entry to that footage. In actual fact, paranoid customers even have the choice to encrypt the locally-stored footage for added privateness. (They usually may again them as much as a trusted cloud service later, as I did.)

Synology covers all of the necessities of a contemporary safety cam suite, together with timed and movement trigger-based recordings, privateness masks, watermarking, and fundamentals like simple scrubbing by way of timelines and directional controls for cameras or mics.

Nevertheless, utilizing a Synology NAS as your digicam’s safety suite really comes into its personal by way of the app retailer and additional software program additions. For instance, Synology helps you to management your digicam utilizing a video-game joystick if that’s what you favor. Have your cameras pointed at pets on a regular basis? You may livestream your safety digicam feed straight to YouTube. The surveillance suite will even allow you to save a second or third set of recordings to one more community vacation spot do you have to select.

All the options are neatly wrapped into a stupendous and easy-to-use interface that follows the identical desktop-like consumer expertise as Synology’s Diskstation Administration software program. After all, you additionally get the choice of utilizing cell apps to faucet into the video feed.

Within the weeks that I’ve been utilizing the Synology Surveillance Station suite as a community video recording answer, the software program has been rock strong and has provided me the peace of thoughts that comes with understanding that the safety footage is being securely backed up ought to I ever want it.

Is it an overkill answer for many common customers? Completely. Nevertheless, if you happen to, like me, want granular management over your {hardware}, and don’t wish to depend on cloud options for a essential piece of your property safety answer, Synology Surveillance Station on a NAS serves as the proper affordably-priced center floor between your digicam’s onboard storage, and a extra skilled, devoted community video recorder.

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