In The Trenches Video Series
NAS and NVRS - "What happens if someone steals my NVR?!"
In this episode we'll be taking about network attached storage, better known as NAS. Adding a NAS to your NVR system can be a great defense in the event someone steals or damages your NVR. We'll explain what a NAS is, explain if it's the right addition to your system, and more.
Our speakers today are:
- > Matthew Nederlanden
- > Benjamin Larue
- > Michael Bell
- > James Campbell
If you're in a situation where you're concerned about theft on your NVR, and NAS is a really good option. If you can't hide that NVR, go for a NAS.
Ben Larue:
Welcome to another episode of In the Trenches Round Table. Today we're going to do a feature showcase. Specifically, we're going to be talking about network attached storage, or better known as NAS. Today, I've got an awesome panel of experts with me. Got James, Michael, and Matthew. Say hey everyone.
Michael Bell:
[Inaudible 00:00:37] Hello.
Ben Larue:
Awesome. All right, today we're going to break down the video like this. First, we're going to start talking about what even is a NAS. Then we're going to talk about who would be interested in NAS. Then we'll cover NAS requirements. We'll spend some time talking about NAS versus RAID. And then finally, we're going to get our panel's thoughts on NAS as a whole. Without further ado, let's talk about what NAS even is. James, all right, give it to me. What is NAS? How do our NVRs work with it?
James Campbell:
My first question, is it NAS, or NAZ.
Michael Bell:
I say NAZ, personally.
James Campbell:
I say NAZ too. You have people to talk to, you said NAZ. Anyway, what a NAS is-
Ben Larue:
I just realized I've been saying NAZ, there's no Z in there.
James Campbell:
Lot's of people I talk to say that, so that's not a good one. What a NAS or NAZ is, is a network attached storage, that's what it stands for. And think about it as an external hard drive, but instead of plugging in through USB or something like that, it's actually plugged into the network. And so that way the data between the NVR, in this case, and the security world, the camera footage is sent to a NAS, that way it can be in a different area. Doesn't have to necessarily be directly connected to the recorder. And that's the main advantage. People use NASes for a whole bunch of other purposes too. Of course, having a central file storage so everyone in the office can grab certain files, or something like that locally. So there's lots of things work for security, it's mostly for redundant footage that is away from the NVR.
Ben Larue:
Gotcha. Michael, what NVRs do we carry that support NAS?
Michael Bell:
Yeah. All of our Imperial series, they support NS. And then most of our Admiral series, the only one that does not is going to be the Admiral Four channel. So just avoid that one if this is something that you're looking for.
Ben Larue:
Well, awesome. Thanks, Michael. James, you mentioned a minute ago redundancy. How does that differ from, say, backup? Are they the same? Are they different?
James Campbell:
Yeah. It's interesting, backup and redundancy are similar term, they can be used interchangeably by some people. But I would say the main difference is redundancy means that it's happening in line with it. As the NVR is recording to its internal hard drive, it's also sending that footage out to the NAS to record as well.
Matthew Nederlanden:
Simultaneous.
James Campbell:
Simultaneous, yeah, that's the word I'm looking for. And so the difference between that and say, a backup. A backup a lot of people see is, okay, 11:30 PM you're going to send the footage over to the NAS. And so the NAS is redundant. It's not a automated backup solution, it is a redundant thing. And that has a major advantage. Okay, somebody goes, and one of the main people who are interested in NASes, they're afraid that somebody's going to go and steal their NVR. Okay, let's just say somebody does steal the NVR. If that backup happened, it's supposed to be happening 11:30 and they steal it at 11:00, you got nothing. Whereas redundancy, that footage should be stored on the NAS to the second that it's unplugged, or so. Redundancy is generally better in this case, and that's what a NAS does offer.
Ben Larue:
Awesome. Any other thoughts on redundancy versus backup, before we move on?
Matthew Nederlanden:
If you're trying to make sure you don't lose data, redundancy is a better option. The problem with redundancy though is it can create a lot of network congestion. If you're always sending data around, it can be difficult, and you can have a drop in your phone calls that you're also sending through that network, or any of the other data you're moving around the network, your web traffic, et cetera. If you're properly VLAN a stuff, you can handle that. But a backup, on the other hand, you can schedule it and you could say, hey, we're going to have this happen at night, and it doesn't create that network congestion. Those are your bigger differences. Go ahead, James. Go ahead, Michael.
Michael Bell:
Yes. Just to put this out there, our systems Imperial and Admiral, they do not have an automatic backup. So if you're looking to back this up, this is something that you manually have to do.
James Campbell:
I would say with redundancy too, backup, the only downside versus redundancy, I would say is... Let me actually start from the beginning, I don't even know what I'm doing with this one. One of the downsides of redundancy versus backup, I should say, is that if the NVR is disconnecting from the network, or whatever during that time period, you will have a gap. So if it's down between 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM for whatever reason, the network's down, there's no fulfilling that 1:00 to 2:00 PM, it has to be online and active as that's going. That's one thing to consider with it.
Ben Larue:
Definitely. And we'll cover many more considerations and requirements later. These are all great things to definitely be thinking about just initially when we start talking about what even is NAS. And so that is a good transition for us to move on to the next section where I really want to unpack who should be interested in or who should be using NAS systems and devices. And really, when should the baby be using. I'm going to start by calling on Matthew. Is there any specific industry or customer who should be most interested in NAS?
Matthew Nederlanden:
I'm actually going to answer that in reverse. Who's it not for? It's not for enterprise. You're going to have a 30 terabyte limit. Let's say if you got 25 4K cameras that you want to recur record for 30 days, you can't fit it. And so if you are an enterprise client, you have a lot of cameras, this is not a really great solution for you. Conversely, who is this for? Who could be interested in it? Somebody with a smaller location, especially small and medium businesses, or homeowners that want to use a professional grade system on their house, usually because they also own a business and have the same technology at both places.
Ben Larue:
Gotcha. Yeah, it's a good rundown. Do we see any specific types of industries using NAS devices more than others?
James Campbell:
I'd say, yeah, I agree with Matthew as far as it seems to be more of a small-medium business and then below offering. But I've seen it a lot in cannabis industry, where they need an often NVR backup, and that's the solution they end up going with. Because the data and everything, it has to flow through your local network, like Matthew's saying. But it's not going through the internet, which is usually a huge, huge impossible task for most people's internet to send a bunch of 4K cameras across and get reliable video. Cannabis is the first one I think of when I hear of NAS, because I know I've done a couple with that.
Michael Bell:
Yeah, I agree. And I think it usually has to be in a separate room as well to be considered offsite, not included in the same room as the NVR.
Matthew Nederlanden:
I'd bring up another one, somebody like a carwash. You're not sending a lot of data internally. It's nice to have a backup of the data. For a car wash, in particular, your main thing you're protecting is not really theft, you don't have a lot of assets. You're trying to protect yourself from a liability standpoint. Did I scratch your car, or did you walk in with that scratch already on the vehicle? And so making sure you don't lose the footage is really helpful. If somebody says, "Hey, my car got scratched while I was here," can you prove otherwise? Having two copies is great. But you're not going to degrade your network performance by sending a dual copy of the footage to two different network devices.
James Campbell:
That's actually an interesting point. Because I know a lot of, especially self-service car washes and stuff like that, that have security systems, they're in a small room that is, in my experience, that door's not Fort Knox in there. And you could put a NAS in there and make sure that in that case somebody does come in and happens to steal it, which can happen. Steals the NVR, you put it in a different place in there and they might be less likely to grab that. And that way you still have that footage of that incident, and everything else you're going to need after that. Ben, you work with a lot of retail and convenience stores. Do you have an experience with that?
Ben Larue:
Yeah, actually that's one that I was going to mention, is really convenient stores and retail shops, mainly jewelry retail stores, places where there's a lot of smash and grab retail crime happening. One of the most common fears I've seen working with these clients is, what happens if they steal my NVR? Then all the footage is gone. And so, looking at NAS as an option is usually our first go-to there.
Michael Bell:
Yeah. And I was just going to mention the self-storage facilities, they're in a similar situation as what James was talking about with the car washes. They just really have a small office, and then the rest of the building, or the property, is just individual storage areas. Have a NAS and NVR.
Matthew Nederlanden:
The other big thing is all three of these industries tend to have a lot of crime. Convenience stores are absolutely having an extreme amount of crime all the time, same thing with self-storage. They have a higher risk profile for events to happen, and thus, they have a higher risk profile that while somebody's in there breaking in, they also smash and grab the NVR, or otherwise disable something.
James Campbell:
And also with all those, you mentioned the one person thing. That means that somebody who's in a convenience store and they have to go in and check something on the gas pump, they might have to leave that desk there for a second. A lot of them have their NVR right there at the-
Michael Bell:
[inaudible 00:10:50] Point of sale.
James Campbell:
Yeah. And that's just because they want to have that screen there. They want to be able to move things if they need to, and everything like that. And so it's a very clear and obvious place of where that NVR is. It's not like an enterprise place where they're going to have a lockdown IT closet, and all this stuff. It's right there in front of them. And criminals are pretty smart about, they know, hey, if there's no evidence of it if I steal this thing. And so having that NAS there as a backup, or potentially relocating the NVR also helps of course too. But that is a real possibility with all those, it's very obvious where it is.
Matthew Nederlanden:
It's a sword that cuts both ways when you have that screen that the customer can see that they're being recorded. First off-
Ben Larue:
It's a good analogy.
Matthew Nederlanden:
... it decreases crime because people know that they're being watched. But if they do commit the crime, they also know there has to be a thing connected to this screen storing that footage. So it's a little bit of, helps you and hurts you.
Ben Larue:
Yeah, definitely true. The location of the NVR, James, I never even had thought of it through that lens. Yeah. At a convenient store it's usually right behind that POS counter. And self-storage facility, it's in the main office.
Matthew Nederlanden:
And the employee needs to be able to see it.
Ben Larue:
Totally. And control it. It makes sense. Yeah. Location of NVR, right.
James Campbell:
That's the same thing with all those self-storage, it's right there in the-
Ben Larue:
Exactly.
James Campbell:
One I've talked to, it's right there in the office right at their desk. And they got the monitor there in the corner, or whatever, the TV in the corner. But it's very obvious where it is because they're not really trying to hide it, I guess at that point.
Matthew Nederlanden:
If that is your situation, we recommend putting the NVR inside of a lockbox. We've got some on the site if you're interested, but that can help reduce somebody smashing it or stealing it.
Ben Larue:
Definitely. That's good. That's good. I want to switch gears here a little bit and talk more about NAS requirements. And just so you understood again, there's no Z NAS requirements and considerations. And so, we're going to get into the trenches a little bit now. I'm going to start by calling on James, and then I want to go around the horn here. But since these are network devices, is it fair to say that these require a robust network or a sophisticated one? What are some of the requirements?
James Campbell:
Yeah, I think Matthew talked about it pretty well too. But the reality, is these are network devices. The footage goes from your NVR through your network to the NAS. And because of that, you want to make sure that you have, the bandwidth across your local network, you want to have gigabit connections, gigabit switches, everything like that. And if you don't know what that is and you're like, well, how do I get that? You can certainly let us know, we'll try to work with you to figure that out. But that does mean you might want to make sure you're talking to maybe somebody with local networking knowledge and everything to just make sure you have that capability. Because you don't want to be in a situation where you think this NAS is working great, and then it turns out it's not been recording because your bandwidth can't keep up. Yeah, definitely it's fair to say you need a robust network that's working well, that has a capacity, and all that stuff.
Ben Larue:
On that note, is it sophisticated to set up a NAS device?
Michael Bell:
It can get pretty detailed, depending on the NAS manufacturer. The only thing that support with SCW has really any... Personally, I have a little bit of knowledge with another brand, but the one that we sell is Synology, and the SCW support team knows that interface. So if that's the one you get from SCW, call the support team, we can definitely help you set that up. But as far as connections and stuff like that, definitely make sure you get good quality ethernets. Like James was saying, the gigabit switches. Because this thing is going to be constantly writing data. Constantly.
Matthew Nederlanden:
There are a couple other technical limitations, because you can get a NAS from a ton of different companies. We happen to work with Synology, we carry that, we support that. But you could buy a Western digital device and set it up yourself, but we can't really help you. That being said, it also needs to make sure the hard drives are formatted in the correct way. There's a bunch of steps, and it is a little bit complicated. And this is probably something that's more intended. If you're not intending to use our NAS, it's going to be a little more advanced.
James Campbell:
Yeah. Actually, it's probably a good point to go over what the actual requirements are if you aren't getting one of the Synology NASes we sell. NASes require a function, or NFS, which basically some NASes will support NFS, some of them don't. Our NVRs require an NFS for it to work. And essentially what that does, in a nutshell, is it allows you to set the permission so that it's almost like a reverse permission, where you're telling the NAS that, hey, this recorder's okay to actually connect to. And so if you don't have NFS, you don't double-check the specks of it, a lot of them out there don't have NFS, and some of them do.
And some, you'll have different manufacturer. The same manufacturer will have different models. This one will support NFS, this one won't. You got to be really careful about that. If you do get the NAS from us, it obviously is compatible. We're going to help you set it up and make sure it's working with the NVR, and everything like that. I'd highly recommend if you don't have a big tech team or aren't techie yourself, to go with the one that we have.
Matthew Nederlanden:
Just like all products, NASes come in consumer versions and business versions, and enterprise versions. NFS is a feature that's going to be available usually on your business class and above. So if you're buying a NAS that's been marketed or a home user, like it's available in Best Buy, probably not going to work. That is not intended for a business class application.
Ben Larue:
Gotcha. NFS stands for?
James Campbell:
Doesn't matter.
Ben Larue:
Good.
Matthew Nederlanden:
I was drawing a blank. Thanks, James.
James Campbell:
I was literally thinking about [inaudible 00:16:52]-
Matthew Nederlanden:
It stands for network file system. It's the ability for a different device to control the file system on this device. But yeah, that's pretty complicated. [inaudible 00:17:05]-
Ben Larue:
No. Well, I didn't want to get NFS confused with NAS, right?
Matthew Nederlanden:
Yes.
Ben Larue:
Don't want to get those two things confused, that's all.
Michael Bell:
Or NTFS.
Ben Larue:
Or TFS or FPS.
James Campbell:
I'll put a little definition thing when I'm talking about-
Matthew Nederlanden:
Yeah, NFS basically says an external device can control my file system and what it looks like.
Ben Larue:
Yeah, perfect. You should also just keep that part in there, James, where you're like, screw you.
Matthew Nederlanden:
I think it's funny.
Ben Larue:
Yeah, I think it's hilarious. If I have a NAS device in a store, in my business right now, what do I need to do to verify if I can use it or not, and see if it has NFS capabilities?
Michael Bell:
I have something to ask for that. What are you using that NAS for currently?
Ben Larue:
Ooh, that's a great question.
Michael Bell:
The biggest thing that I found when using a NAS with one of our systems, you want that NAS to only work with our system. You want a dedicated NAS for your recorder. Don't have a Plex server for your home or anything else like that running on it at the same time, you need it dedicated to your recorder.
Ben Larue:
Great. Actually, we're talking a little bit about considerations and requirements and stuff, but what actually happens if the NVR is stolen?
Michael Bell:
As far as being able to pull the footage from the NAS itself?
Ben Larue:
Yeah.
Michael Bell:
But still hopefully onsite?
Ben Larue:
Hopefully.
Michael Bell:
Okay. The files are encoded within the NAS. So if you were to try to use your computer and try to log directly into the NAS, all you're really going to see is a bunch of gibberish. You do need your NVR to be able to decode that to be able to watch that footage. A really important factor in this particular case is make sure that you have a backup of your configuration of your NVR, because that is also required to be able to read any of the hard drives, including a NAS that is connected directly from the network to be able to watch that footage. So back up your configuration, we'll show you where it's at. I think it's on a website, getscw.com as to where you can find out how to do that, if I remember right. If not, I'm sure we can put something up together.
Matthew Nederlanden:
Let me interject here. That's on purpose, and that's a feature. It sounds like, oh man, that would be really hard to use. That's on purpose, and that's a feature, and it's designed for our legal system. That is designed so that our legal system can trust that footage has not been edited and that footage is authentic and has a chain of custody. So is it intended to only be able to viewed by the NVR, not to make it hard, not to make it difficult, but to make it authentic. So we know that this is video that came from this device and this is the real output, this is not a doctored output.
Michael Bell:
Since we're on this topic, James, I have a question for you. Normally, when I talk to our customers, and when they purchase a system from us, including a NAS, the drives that we always include are the surveillance grade hard drives.
James Campbell:
Yeah.
Michael Bell:
Now I've heard some back and forth, oh, it's a NAS, make sure you're using NAS drives, and stuff like that. I tend to lean more towards the surveillance grade drives, but I just want to get your thought on that as well.
James Campbell:
That's a great question, because most of the time you buy a NAS they don't have hard drives in them.
Michael Bell:
Right.
James Campbell:
Inside. You're allowed to configure with us, we'll install those ones for you, everything like that. And we are going to put surveillance rated drives in there. And that's just because I think, and this might not be 100% accurate, but a NAS drive isn't at quite as robust as an NVR or video surveillance rated drive. Because a NAS, in most cases, is that file storage for the office. That means that somebody occasionally, a couple times a day people are going and they're downloading a video off of it, or they're grabbing some JPEG pictures off of it. And so the duty on the NAS is fairly... It's not nothing, but it's more than an regular PC drive, the NAS drives, but they're not quite to a level of NVR where you're talking about that 24/7 operation. Because again, that NVR is running to that NAS from midnight to midnight, 24/7. And so you need the drive to be able to handle that 24/7 operation. I would recommend video surveillance drives over the NAS drives.
Michael Bell:
Okay.
Matthew Nederlanden:
Yeah. I always like to use the analogy of a sprinter versus a long distance runner. Computer drives, server drives, NAS drives, these are more architecturally designed like a sprinter. It's going to actually go a lot faster and spin a lot faster than a surveillance grade drive, but it's going to also need to rest. And so this is the way that generally computing happens, is it goes super fast, and then it slows down a little bit, dissipates the heat. A surveillance drive is going to do the opposite. It in fact spins a little slower, but it never, ever, ever has to rest.
Ben Larue:
Definitely. I'd love to shift gears a little bit while we're talking about hard drives and types of storage, and all that. And talk about RAID versus NAS, and how does NAS compare to RAID? Let's start there. How does NAS compare to RAID?
James Campbell:
I'll take that. RAID is, and we have a full video on this where we dive deep into different levels of RAID.
Matthew Nederlanden:
Link below.
James Campbell:
Yeah. RAID is basically a way of preventing a hard drive failure from where you lose footage. Traditionally, if you have footage stored on there, you're going to lose footage on whatever hard drive happens to fail. Whereas RAID binds them together and then allows you, in the event of a hard drive failure, to not lose a second of footage. And so they're very different. RAID is basically, the way I would say, is RAID's probably more enterprise. Going back to what Matthew was saying, because it is more enterprise. But there's just a lot more flexibility in it, there's a lot more storage capability with it. There's a little bit more redundancy options with it too. And so the main advantage of a NAS over RAID it is just that it's off location, and that's where it really comes in handy.
Even on a NAS, actually, we have two different types of NASAs. We have one that's two bays, one that's four bays. The Synology software in there actually allows you to create a RAID array within the NAS. We're in inception like now, so you can actually set one there in the event that one of the hard drives fail on the NAS, you don't lose footage as well. There's lots of different... It gets pretty in-depth and it gets... But if you want to know more about RAID, definitely take a look at the video. I think we did a great job going over that. [inaudible 00:23:49].
Matthew Nederlanden:
Let me speak to a use case and do something that's completely different than our idea of, where would you put NAS? You put it in a gas station. One employee, one location, probably got 16 cameras or less. And let's talk about college campus, small one, get 300 cameras. You're going to fill up, if you were to attempt to use a NAS, and that would be silly, but you'd fill it up in two days. This is not a great solution for, you given the maximum size of a NAS. Additionally, let's just talk about the building structure. The convenience store, where is the NVR? You know that. Inside a college campus, where is the NVR? Very few people know that. I'm not worried about somebody breaking in and stealing the NVR, it's probably under five layers of security with an access control system and alarm, and all this other stuff in the way that's networked upon eight different buildings, and nobody even knows which building it's in.
This is a really different scenario than I'm reasonably confident that every gas station I've ever gone to, if I just go behind the counter, I'm going to find some sort of recording device, whether it's an NVR or a DVR. I know where it is. So your threat is totally different on a more enterprise location like that because people don't know where the device is hosted.
Ben Larue:
Awesome. I think that's a clear indication of who should use what versus the other.
Matthew Nederlanden:
It makes a nice juxtaposition for the big client [inaudible 00:25:19] and the small location.
Ben Larue:
Definitely. Absolutely. All right. I'd say let's wrap this one up. I want to give each of you 30 seconds or less to give us your final thoughts on NAS, and that's N-A-S, NAS. So whoever wants to take the wheel first, I'll let them go. But final thoughts?
Michael Bell:
I'll go first. Yeah, it's worth it. It's nice to have that redundancy just in case something does happen. One thing that I don't think we also mentioned, just to have a final thought here. You don't have to have all of your cameras recording to that redundancy. You can have one or two or three, or however many you have. It doesn't have to be all 16, 200, however many cameras you have.
James Campbell:
That's a great point. Yeah. A lot of our customers have a specific set of cameras that are more important than others. Your entranceways, your cash registers, and they want the redundancy there. And that can help reduce the bandwidth that we've been talking about as far as the amount of data that's going across, while still keep getting that backup. So that's actually a great point, it is on a per camera basis. I guess I'll jump into there too. I think Lil Nas X, like Old Town Road was a really great song.
Ben Larue:
Yes.
James Campbell:
No. I guess my real final thoughts are, if you're in a situation where you're concerned about theft on your NVR, and NAS is a really good option. If you can't hide an NVR, go for a NAS. And talk with us, we'll talk you through what you're going to need for it and what the right situation is.
Matthew Nederlanden:
And I would say that NAS is a great solution for a small and medium business, or that particular case of the legislation that cannabis faces with the offsite different room storage. I would even say it's even usable, like Michael was saying, you can pick a camera or two. So taking a really big business and you say, wherever my NVR is located, I'm also going to do a NAS for that camera. It can really be flexibly utilized. But in terms of what it's great for, for a whole system, small or medium business, advanced homeowners. And what it's great for, for selective cameras, you can also use it for enterprise as a great solution for that. But definitely not intended for enterprise to back up everything.
Michael Bell:
Yeah, there is a 30 terabyte limit which hit hits pretty hard whenever you get into enterprise level stuff.
Ben Larue:
Awesome. Awesome, awesome. Well, that's good stuff. Glad we were able to get that one in. Thanks so much for watching, really appreciate it. All of the resources that we've been referencing will be in the description below, so feel free to check those out. Also, reach out to the support team or the sales team if you have any questions about any of the stuff that we covered today, or you're just genuinely curious. And again, if you want to learn more about NAS, we're always going to be here to let you know, give advice, recommendations, et cetera. Thanks so much for joining though. We'll see you next week on another episode.
James Campbell:
See you.