[Newbie Q] Do I need a dedicated PC for v small IPcam system?

[mc510]

Hi folks, I don't have any IP cams yet but am planning to get a few (between one and three) to monitor the front on my house. I've got a good router with an attached 1TB hard drive, and I'm wondering if I really need to add a dedicated PC running BlueIris or similar ... or if I can just use the onboard configuration on each camera to set detection zones and save video to my network storage drive. I guess the answer is that I can do either but there are trade-offs. So what would be the disadvantages of just relying on each camera's onboard system?

 

[mc510]

Off hand, A dedicated system gives you centralized control/monitoring and easily expandable storage space. You can throw x tb of hard disk storage into a cheap pc rather than mess with sd cards.

Storagewise, I was assuming that the cameras would be able to save video clips directly to my 1TB NAS drive; is this a reasonable assumption for most decent IP cameras?

 

[tangent]

Storagewise, I was assuming that the cameras would be able to save video clips directly to my 1TB NAS drive; is this a reasonable assumption for most decent IP cameras?

yes and no, many have the function but it generally doesn't work as well as you'd like or imagine.