Business plan users can leverage the ability to store events on a NAS device. This allows for redundant storage in the case of an internet outage.

NAS Setup

1. Log into your account and go to Username -> Settings menu. 

2. Click Add NAS

3. Fill in all the NAS information.

NAS Name - any label you want to give your NAS setup

Internal IP - This is the IP where the NAS is running. This must be on the same network as your camera. Share Name - i.e. myshare\myfolder Make sure you've created a share name on the NAS previously. If not you can still do this after this setup.

IMPORTANT: Use different share names for different camera types to avoid conflicts. For example if you have Axis and Hanwha camera going to the same NAS use different share names: axisshare, hanwhashare. Also pay attention to sub-folders. They maybe represented in different ways. i.e. myshare\subdir or myshare/subdir

IMPORTANT: Certain camera manufacturers (i.e. Hanwha Techwin) have issues using the same share name. To be safe always use different share folders for each and every camera.

Username - This is the username of the NAS

Password - This is the password of the NAS

Attach a NAS to a camera

Now that we setup a NAS we can attach it to a camera.

1. Log into your account.

2. Select your camera and use the small arrow next to the name to bring up the menu. Select Edge Storage.

3. A new window will appear with SD card (if available) as the default. Select the NAS tab.

4. Select the NAS Device you created earlier and selct Mount. You can use Test to verify it's all working.

Note: When you first go to the NAS tab, you may see a Disk Status and it's showing you can Unmount the device. However if you don't see a NAS device in your list that means an existing NAS may have existed on the camera. In that case Unmount first then go ahead and add the NAS.

5. Make sure Edge Storage Events are ON and here you can select the Record Mode type. Continous or Event triggers. This may vary by camera model. In addition you may see a Qualty setting to apply to the NAS events. Note that Advanced Edge Analytics (such as tampering, face detection, etc.) are NOT supported for NAS devices.

6. Click Save to start storing to the NAS.

Viewing NAS Events

Note that not all camera models are able to show play or download events on the timeline. See below for camera model specifics.

1. Right next to the Go Live/Live button you will have a filter. Click filter to show specific storage locations. In this case select NAS.

2. Timeline will be popluated with specific events. Note: this can take time to load events especially with a large time scale (i.e. 24 hrs)

3. In the diagram above there are several items being displayed.

  • The first 3 cameras will show events but it doesn't support playback. Therefore they are not clickable. In the current timeline only the "Hikvision D..." has some continuous recording events. However you can not click on them to play.
  • The "Axis 5013" has some recent events. In the diagram above I've clicked one area in the timeline. It starts trying to load the events for playback (as shown with the diagonal stripes). 
  • Clicking on one area in the timeline will fetch a larger chunk of video for optomized playback.
  • Any dark grey area as shown in the image above is an indication that either the NAS has failed to return the resulting event or there was a communication error with the NAS at that point.

4. Once any event plays you can download directly. Of course you can always just go to the NAS to pull any events as well.

Camera Model Specifics

Axis cameras:

  • Full support.

Hanwha:

  • Plug and Play:
    • Full Support.
  • Port Forward:
    • Does not support NAS playback. You can only see events in the timeline but to play them you need to get them from the NAS itself
    • Sub directories for the NAS share are not supported

Vivotek:

  • Confguration of events to the NAS but you cannot list them on the timeline. You need to go to your NAS device.

Hikvision:

  • Does not support NAS playback. You can only see events in the timeline but to play them you need to get them from the NAS itself.

Amcrest:

  • No support for NAS

Troubleshooting

  • Careful of the date/time setup on your camera!!! If you don't setup the time correctly the events won't match on your timeline.
  • Current Hanwha firmware versions have some limitations in their handling of Daylight Savings Time (DST) and edge storage media. Try toggling DST if you have issues.
  • Playback from NAS on Hanwha Techwin cameras can take several minutes for a clip to load. This is due to the large file size of video clips getting sent directly from the camera to your computer in real time. 
  • Hanwha Techwin cameras have issues showing media from the NAS when they've been setup previously for the NAS. It's recommended to start fresh and factory default the camera.
  • Axis camera won't mount the share: Axis disabled SMB 1.0 and SMB 2.0 by default as of firmware 8.30.1. For NAS that don’t support SMB 3.0, the deprecated support can be manually re-enabled: https://www.axis.com/support/faq/FAQ116392.

    This will vary per NAS. As an example here are the QNAP instructions for enabling SMB 3.0: https://www.qnap.com/en/how-to/tutorial/article/how-to-use-smb-3-0-in-qts-4-2/

    Note: In this case we made the NAS mount using the first part only. Control Panel → Network Services → Win/Mac/NFS → Microsoft Networking → Advanced Options: Set the “Highest SMB version” to “SMB 3.0”. When you change to use SMB 3.0 encryption, the Axis camera won't mount the share. 

  • If you are using a Samba server you need to enable NTLM auth. In /etc/samba/smb.conf, under the [globals] section, add the line:
    ntlm auth=Yes

  • QNAP devices create a @Recently-Snapshot folder (backup strategy). This can confuse certain camera such as Hikvision. Make sure to hide this folder. See this article