What does pressing Format on a NAS NetHDD do?

[funkytwig]

Does it delete everything from it? Also once formatted can I access the NAS share from other computers on the network or is it creating some type of proprietory filesystem?

Lastly, once it is initilised does all footage then get automatically save to it? The NetHDD is setup on the NVR and I want ti to recoord acopy of everythn to the NAS.

 

[rompik]

Every NAS may work a bit different. I have custom built NAS based on Ubuntu. Network shares are done via Samba:
1. Yes it deletes everything from shared folder. It creates a new folder / file structure. All files are empty.
2. Yes, you can access folder with recorded footage the same way as any other folder on your NAS.
3. It doesnt use any propretaty system. Is doesnt create a new partition / filtesystem. Just folder / file structure
4. If you instruct your cameras to rfecord to NAS they will do just that. Everything wil be stored there.
5. I don't have NVR so please don't take it as gospel: Typically you either use cameras + NAS or cameras + NVR. For easier setup / some extra features you may use both NVR and NAS (set up in NVR; recording to NAS). But then you record to NAS only.

 

[funkytwig]

OK, got it working, maybe...

I added the NASandformated it. It took a while and put a load of MP4 files on the NAS.

But non of them actually play and mediainfo does not indicate they are video files.

what are they and how can I use them?

Ben

 

[rompik]

@funkytwig, initially all MP4 files are empty (size 0). Wait until they will contain footage.
If they are not empty then you may have problems with player - try VLC Player.

 

[funkytwig]

@rompik do they just start backing up stuff from when NAS setup or will it in time backup everything?

also the filenames look very cryptic, cant work out what files are for what camera and what day.

 

[rompik]

I don't quite know what your set up is. Possibly it varies if you use some third party tools like Surveillance Station or simple network share (eg. via Samba).
In my case:
1. I use Samba to set up separate share for each camera (600G for each). Separate shares are needed as otherwise single disk becomes "Uninitialized" shortly after you add it to second camera and format it. In other words camera needs exclusive use of disk to figure out how much space it can use.

If you need help with creating those shares pls let me know. In my case you will see that each of 4 cameras has dedicated Disk Image file. That file is mounted to filesystem so content is accessed by folder hik_cube_x_x.

2. When you initialize disk it creates folder structure (there will be "cctv" folder and lots of "datadirX" subfolders) and empty files to store videos and pictures inside "datadirX" folders.

3. When the camera records it immediately stores the footage on your NAS. You don't need to back up anything. You can even open the file that is being written by camera at the same time.

4. All files have a timestamp when they were updated. So if you want to view the footage from specific time simply find the file with that timestamp:

 

[rompik]

Of course you will need media player to play the files. If you use one of the more recent formats (eg. h265+) it may not play be default. VLC is the best to play anything.

 

[funkytwig]

It's a NAS set up in a 77 series NVR, it only supports NFS. It seems to dump all cameras footage in a single directory.

 

[rompik]

I setup NAS directly from the camera. Never tried NFS - just Samba:

From what I researched: each camera needs a dedicated disk. If you add the same disk to multiple cameras they will not know how much space is available for each one. They cannot cross-manage their space requirements.

To overcome this you can either:
- create virtual disks on physical drive (eg. 4 virt disks of 1GB on single 4GB drive), mount them and expose them via Samba
- use user quotas on bigger disk (never tried that) so each camera (with different user) has access to only eg. 1GB
- maybe there are some other bespoke mechanism from NAS.

What NAS do you use?