Long Term Storage

Spad2000

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I have a dual Chanel VIOFO A129. I am looking for a solution or recommendations for different hardware if there is not a solution to my problem. I need to retain dashcam footage for 60-90 days. Currently cycling through multiple SD cards. Tried removing SD card and copying to USB drive, but it became easier to just use multiple SD cards. Is there a way to save footage to an external drive with out removing SD card to transfer? It can be saved in real time or end of day when returning home. I have seen some discussions regarding the topic, but it dose not look like a solution exist?
 
The easy route is the wifi cameras.
BUT ! you have to connect to a phone or tablet and you still have to do that while the camera are on, and then store the footage there if you don't want to spend even more time transferring the footage to a computer or another form of storage ( NAS )
And on its own the wifi in current cameras are pretty slow, but i think next generation hardware ( SOC ) will change that

Personally i am hoping for storage in dashcams to be something else than memory cards, though those are also pretty large now.
And maybe some form of automated backup process, so you just plug a external hard drive or thumb drive into a USB port, and the camera would then backup all new footage to that devise.

Personally i still think copying the footage of the memory card on the computer are the best approach, cuz the read speed are normally high on memory cards, but you need a good card reader on a fast connection to tap into that.
So i use a USB 3.0 card reader on a USB 3.0 port on my computer even if i don't do bulk transfers of footage.
 
Depends on how much footage you have, but probably the wifi is too slow, on all cameras, and the USB is also rather slow, on all cameras, so that just leaves removing the memory card and using a really fast card reader to copy it off onto something else. Changing cameras isn't going to help.

If you don't have much footage, getting a larger card would help.
Using a lower bitrate would also help, would result in more footage on the card before needing to copy it off.
 
For that length of a recording loop, you might be better off with a traditional CCTV system (DVR + cameras) rather than dashcams. A 4-channel CCTV system using only 2 of the cameras and a large hard drive might get you close to 30 days of footage on a single drive. You could get even longer times by lowering the recording resolution if you think you could live with it. Most of those you can power with 12v DC direct, though they probably draw too much power for parking mode use.
 
I was copying SD cards to a hard drive, but I found it to be easier just to cycle through 4-6 256gig SD cards and leave them in a case. I am looking for a solution that does not require copying files by removing SD card or using multiple SD cards. I dont think there is much out there but wanted to check in with those crafty individuals. I did consider a cctv, admittedly did not do much research on it, so I may have to explore that option a little more closely. I will need at least 2 Chanel, so I will need to have a way to connect both cameras to a storage device that does not require a PC, excessive power, and that can be powered with 12volt.

Afterthought: CCTV may lack gps location and speed. Something I will also need track
 
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There are commercial systems that will take large hard drives and so have the abillety to store a lot, but these are often lacking in quality and are for systems filming occupants in say a bus more than looking out the window to film what go on out there.
Price on these systems can also be thru the roof.
 
I was copying SD cards to a hard drive, but I found it to be easier just to cycle through 4-6 256gig SD cards and leave them in a case.
Go for a low bitrate and that might all fit on one card...
 
its doable, no easy solution exits to my knowledge.... you would have to re-do the dash cam internals to be able to transfer to a hard drive most likely.
I am curious if one of those SD card to sata/data adapters would work ? I personally haven't tried one yet, but as long as you have the hard drive set up correctly I don't see why it wouldn't work.
(just for reference) it would need to be a coupler ribbon cable to an sd to sata converter
https://www.amazon.com/gp/B0078PVL8UA device could be made I am sure of it.
 
I'm not sure a dashcam will serve this purpose well, as they are not intended to be long-term recorders but rather to deal with a few days time at the most. So unless you can engineer your own long-term storage solution you'll have to transfer files manually from card to another device as necessary to gain your goal.

I do find the thought of an outboard high-capacity storage device with a plug-and-play type interface interesting, and I think that coupled with a better-grade dashcam would sell enough units to make it profitable for a manufacturer if it could be done without great expense and cost. That external device could also be used as the basis for improved wifi file transfer since it would not require an in-cam chip or board with those inherent limitations. I think we will see this someday but not very soon as most of us are relatively happy with our dashcam storage functionality now.

Phil
 
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