What micro SD card does this camera merit? (Spoiler:Color4K-X)

NightLife

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I just realized I completely forgot to buy a 256GB micro SD for my camera I'm expecting any time. I took a look, and honestly don't know what some of the symbology even means. Ok, I understand C10, but that's it.

It's basically this camera: IPC-HFW5849T1-ASE-LED .


Is there a high quality card someone would suggest. Future proofing is good, if that factors at all. Is something like this overkill, or just right?




Thank-you
 

Teken

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If this is for serious use than purchase industrial rated media which offers a lifetime warranty. From there high endurance media which offers 3 years warranty from a reputable company of your choice.

There is a new line often times called max endurance which offers ten year warranty.

The higher end memory cards incorporate ware levelling, health check, bad sector marking, and power loss protection.
 

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@Teken , I'll have to unpack some of that, and then determine if I require that sort of thing. This will mainly be a critter cam right now, but in the future it may be redeployed towards the home security side of things here.


What you've mentioned gives me lots to think about, thanks.
 

Teken

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@Teken , I'll have to unpack some of that, and then determine if I require that sort of thing. This will mainly be a critter cam right now, but in the future it may be redeployed towards the home security side of things here.


What you've mentioned gives me lots to think about, thanks.
You may consider the following micro SD cards from SanDisk:

High Endurance: SanDisk 256GB High Endurance Video microSDXC Card with Adapter for Dash Cam and Home Monitoring systems - C10, U3, V30, 4K UHD, Micro SD Card - SDSQQNR-256G-GN6IA
Max Endurance: SanDisk 256GB MAX Endurance microSDXC Card with Adapter for Home Security Cameras and Dash cams - C10, U3, V30, 4K UHD, Micro SD Card - SDSQQVR-256G-GN6IA
Industrial: SanDisk 16GB Industrial MLC MicroSD SDHC UHS-I Class 10 SDSDQAF3-016G Bulk (1 Pack)
It should be noted anything larger than 16GB of industrial memory is very hard to find and 256GB is extremely expensive! You’ll have to find a authorized seller if you intend to use the larger capacity.

We’ve used all three types since their initial release in thousands of cameras running 24.7.365 and no failures yet. Keep in mind edge recording should not be the only method to capture important video data.

Given it’s only for critters buy the cheapest you can get for now and wait for prices to drop on the other higher performance memory.

Rock On . . .
 
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NightLife

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Awesome intel, thanks!


To start I'll be running a POE switch, and feeding the cameras back in to my Synology NAS, so the SD card won't be the only method or recording; just back-up.


Good idea on the go (cheaper) non-industrial level for this cam, for right now. If it gets re-deployed elsewhere I can always bring in a heavy duty SD, and shift the lighter duty SD to whatever becomes the next critter cam.
 

Teken

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Awesome intel, thanks!


To start I'll be running a POE switch, and feeding the cameras back in to my Synology NAS, so the SD card won't be the only method or recording; just back-up.


Good idea on the go (cheaper) non-industrial level for this cam, for right now. If it gets re-deployed elsewhere I can always bring in a heavy duty SD, and shift the lighter duty SD to whatever becomes the next critter cam.
The best value per dollar is the 128GB High Endurance. But only offer 3 years warranty. For not a whole lot more the Max Endurance offers 10 years so by that time memory will have dropped at least half.

In a decade the cameras will be gone and replaced so find that balance of investing now or save now.

Industrial memory absolutely makes sense in extreme installations and where reliability is the primary goal. All of the major institutions such as police, hospital, fire, EMS, financial, and military use them.
 

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I went over to tools, and dropped in a few figures to see just how many hours a 256GB SD card would hold, and it's really not much. If I did this right, a 256 on a 4K camera @30 fps etc will hold 1.82 days worth of data. Good enough for power outages, I guess, which suits me fine. Or upgrading the NAS as well, now that I think about it. The 128GB does seem to make the best choice, judging on memory prices drop predictably, so I grabbed a 128GB on Amazon, which should give me an 'accurate' recording length of 19.68 hrs. I think the critters and I will be happy.

Screen Shot 2021-10-15 at 00.23.25.png
 
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wittaj

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Or you could have it only record on motion and get more time!

This one hasn't been thoroughly tested yet, but for many the Dahua cams start acting wonky once the card fills up and the camera has to decide how to write over a file that is still being recorded. Heck some of mine act up when the card gets full just recording on motion.
 

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Oh, I thought it just started recording and then cannibalizing that data to keep going seamlessly. Are you implying that we can tell the cameras under what circumstances to even use the SD card? I assumed it did by default, with no question.
 

wittaj

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Oh, I thought it just started recording and then cannibalizing that data to keep going seamlessly. Are you implying that we can tell the cameras under what circumstances to even use the SD card? I assumed it did by default, with no question.
You have to tell the SD card when to record - days, times, continuous or motion and with motion is it Motion Detection, Smart Motion Detection, or IVS rules. Depending on the camera you may also record number of people or heat maps or a variety of other parameters.

But no, you don't just stick the SD card in and it starts recording.
 

Teken

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I went over to tools, and dropped in a few figures to see just how many hours a 256GB SD card would hold, and it's really not much. If I did this right, a 256 on a 4K camera @30 fps etc will hold 1.82 days worth of data. Good enough for power outages, I guess, which suits me fine. Or upgrading the NAS as well, now that I think about it. The 128GB does seem to make the best choice, judging on memory prices drop predictably, so I grabbed a 128GB on Amazon, which should give me an 'accurate' recording length of 19.68 hrs. I think the critters and I will be happy.

View attachment 104882
The number of days recorded is quite variable and depends upon how much activity is present vs not. The type of video compression also plays a major role.

There is no doubt the difference between H.264 vs H.265 in terms of smaller file size which translates to more days available to be recorded on the Micro SD card.

Now, if the question is how much difference is there between using any of the proprietary compression formats such as H.264+ / H.265+ over their originals that depends upon each hardware vendor.

You can read their white papers listing out the benefits and storage differences.

It should be noted there are lots of information and feedback about using H.+ compression on this forum and others.

Things to consider is using the above proprietary compression formats will often times require using the companies dedicated playback software.

Not a problem if only for you but if you like to share the same you’ll need to either convert it or use the more standard video compression like H.264 and never have to worry about extra steps to view, share, load, etc.

You’ll also find lots of negative feedback as it relates to 24.7.365 recording. In most cases failures are due to using cheap media not intended for continuous writes.

This is why I called out some of the models I use with great success. They are designed and made specifically to be written to continuously. Keep in mind even the best media will fail as the technology is still improving and ever changing.

All Micro SD cards have a predetermined number of writes. Once met, the card will fail like any other.

Other things to consider are depending upon camera model & brand. It’s been well documented that (specific) Dahua cameras have problems with 24.7.365 recording and often times corrupt the Micro SD card.

In those cases which I’ve seen it’s not the memory card but the hardware is at fault. If I was a betting man I’d guess it’s a firmware issue that isn’t quite right.

Regardless of the above I can not stress the importance of having your video security system on a dedicated pure sine wave UPS.

The vast majority of memory failures are due to dirty power or sudden drops in operations of the video camera. Using a UPS offers you that protection and buffer for short power interruptions when present. Lastly, you’ll note I called out the higher performance memory incorporates some type of power protection?!?

Essentially what this is a combination of software and capacitor. Upon a loss of power the memory card completes the last read / write and gracefully shuts down.

This is essentially a micro UPS within the Micro SD card!

This technology is still improving and evolving but offers vastly better protection from standard memory that doesn’t use the same.

Just some things to chew on.
 

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I grabbed a ;high endurance' 128 GB card so perhaps it has the onboard flux capacitor ;)


And I did look into some UPS a few weeks ago, but balked at the poultry number of hours of power they provided, when I compared that time to our average power outages. But as you note it isn't always about constant, enduring power .. but should probably be lensed as a stop gap until things can be adequately shut down. We've had a whole lot of brown outs, and even the odd blackout this summer and the NAS appears to be fine once rebooted so that's good. But perhaps the camera might be best served by one, particularly when I flesh out the home security side of things.

I'll dig into the 'pure sine wave UPS's next. If I were building, I would definitely drop the $20K for a backup generator, and a nice UPS to bridge the few seconds till it fires up.
 

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I grabbed a ;high endurance' 128 GB card so perhaps it has the onboard flux capacitor ;)


And I did look into some UPS a few weeks ago, but balked at the poultry number of hours of power they provided, when I compared that time to our average power outages. But as you note it isn't always about constant, enduring power .. but should probably be lensed as a stop gap until things can be adequately shut down. We've had a whole lot of brown outs, and even the odd blackout this summer and the NAS appears to be fine once rebooted so that's good. But perhaps the camera might be best served by one, particularly when I flesh out the home security side of things.

I'll dig into the 'pure sine wave UPS's next. If I were building, I would definitely drop the $20K for a backup generator, and a nice UPS to bridge the few seconds till it fires up.
As you noted the vast majority of consumer grade UPS systems only offer a few minutes to maybe an hour of runtime before the system shuts down. The main goal is provide reliable and clean power to the various systems in the home to filter and bridge that short gap.

A solid power supply system incorporates UPS as part of the ecosystem.

Some considerations for you to think about is looking at several smaller UPS systems to power a few components. This would allow more flexibility in terms of point of use deployment while also offering a measure of redundancy. You could also look at second hand via eBay and others for gently used enterprise UPS systems going for pennies on the dollar when compared to new.

Regardless of which route you go new vs used or combination of both - something is better than nothing! :thumb:

SPD's (Surge Protective Devices) or TVSS's are your first line of defense to protect the homes infrastructure. This starts with solid low resistance (below 25 ohms) Earth ground from the service entrance to the service panel. SPD's from Type 1-4 should be used where they make sense and offers that layered approach. Type 1 SPD's are installed at the service entrance or meter base, Type 2 are installed at the service panel, Type 3 are at the Point of Use (Outlet), Type 4 are installed in series before say a large appliance like a furnace, washer, dishwasher, etc.

A UPS (depending upon type) offers something a SPD / TVSS can't which is protection from frequency drift and voltage sag / voltage rise conditions.

Both of these voltage states are extremely dangerous when present . . .

A solid double conversion pure sine wave UPS offers such protection from the above conditions as do others. As an aside, everything you buy moving forward should (if it can) be designed to operate from 80 ~ 277 VAC @50/60 Hz. Devices which are designed for dual voltage / dual frequency will easily sustain so called brown outs / voltage rise events. This can be seen as a built in electrical buffer which cost you nothing and really came down to you making that informed buying choice! :lmao:

It should be noted many newer UPS offer PFC (Power Factor Correction) and may help in some instances. As it relates to communications depending upon your personal goals and how involved you like to be as it relates to being aware of the various systems. Take some time to see what brands offer Home Automation support while also being able to send basic emails, sms, etc. Almost all of the latest generation of UPS offer some kind of computer linking so you can define how it shuts down, turns on, various metrics captured etc.

If you know a thing . . . You can react to a thing! :headbang:

A few words as it relates to any UPS system regardless of the brand, make, model. Batteries are consumables and like socks wear even when not called to duty just sitting there. If you have a UPS that's been in the field for 4-6 years those batteries need to be replaced! You never want to experience a battery fire as these conditions are very hard to put out while remaining safe doing so.

Like anything that matters you must always test, validate, and continue to test on a regular basis. This is the only way to truly know if something will operate as you expect. In Enterprise monthly power fault tests are completed to validate the expected run time is seen vs needed from Generators, Battery Banks, to local UPS. So put away a small amount of dollars for maintenance consumables like batteries.
 
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