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Cloud storage provider recommendations

B

bleomycin

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 14, 2010
Messages
242
Sorry if this is the wrong sub to post this in, I really wasn't sure where it belongs.

I'm looking for a cloud storage provider to mirror my front door security camera footage to (it can be self hosted too, the app is all that matters). My biggest requirement being that they have an ios/android app that automatically finds all video in any folder and is able to display them sorted by date with thumbnails. So far the only solution i've been able to find is bitcasa (their phone app and web app does this perfectly). They have proven to be extremeley slow and have a ridiculous policy of not allowing users to delete any of their content, see here.

Thanks for any help!
 
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If you have the bandwidth to upload camera footage in real-time, why not store it locally and access it directly and only when needed?

"Cloud storage" is the completely wrong tool. Why would you upload real-time surveillance data of your own home - even if it's only the front door - to who knows where? I boggles the mind.
 
It may not be a great idea to use any old 'cloud storage' provider, but the reason for wanting to upload it is sorta obvious...security. A smart thief, upon seeing a security camera, will almost certainly search for and steal the computer recording the video to 'protect' himself.

Moving the video streams quickly to an off-site storage is the right response to this.

I'm guessing you don't really need archival storage. Just relatively current in case the NVR gets ripped off. Why not just use Dropbox? Is fast and cheap. Free if you keep your net storage under 10Gbytes, which is about 4 of SD video. If you store video files to it they can be played easily from any Android phone (and I would guess IOS too).
 
TCM2: I'm not even slightly concerned about having the small short clips of recorded video of my front door hosted publicly, that really isn't a privacy concern of mine. This is a vacation property and the amount of front door traffic is very minimal and so are the privacy concerns. I'm also not uploading the live camera feed, only the video that was stored due to the camera detecting motion.

The security footage is stored on the cameras themselves as well as on a server located at the property. The reason for wanting an offsite backup of the footage is pretty obvious. PigLover is correct that I do not need years of video backed up online, a few weeks worth is sufficient.

Storing the video files offsite is very easy and I have plenty of private offsite locations I own to store the data at, but that isn't all i'm looking for. Because the security camera stores the video files in a randomly created folder hierarchy quickly viewing the most recent video on an iphone/android device becomes annoying and difficult. The bitcasa application simplifies this by digging through all of the available data and sorting it by media type. I'm able to show only video files with thumbnails and sort them by date. That is all i'm looking for. It doesn't have to be a cloud provider, and ideally it wouldn't be. I'm just not aware of any self-hosted applications that replicate that functionality (owncloud, bittorrent sync, etc.)
 
This is a really weird usage case for it... But you could use Plex. Add your security footage directory from any of your private servers as a 'home video' directory and you would be able to sort by recently added AND unwatched. It also allows streaming to a whole slew of devices (windows phone, android, iphone, any web browser etc.). It isn't a cloud provider so you get added security as well.

Server program is free (and runs on windows, mac, linux, freebsd) and most clients are free but the mobile apps cost 5 dollars (although you could technically use your phones web browser).
 
If the issue is sorting/storing and then being able to find clips for display then you really need to look at a better NVR application for your server.

I use BlueIris. Its not perfect, runs on Windows. It has an iphone/ipad/android application that does a really good job of presenting clips from your camera. It includes motion detect rules and can, on conditions you set, send push notifications.

It sorts its files into three directories. "New" clips go into one and stay there for 7 days (configurable0. "Alerts" are small jpeg snaps taken when a motion or other alert occurs. "Storage' are long-term file storage - "new" clips are moved there when they age out. i just set Dropbox to monitor the "new" and "alerts" folder and I get my backup within a few seconds of each clip closing. I put the "stoirage" folder on as a network folder on my file server.

Simple and effective.
 
Aha, thanks for the replies guys. Those are both excellent ideas. I've just been using the crappy logitech software so i'll look into blueiris. The plex idea actually sounds brilliant as well, i'll look into that as i've already paid for their apps.
 
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