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How do I expand the local recording capacity of the TetherBox?
How do I expand the local recording capacity of the TetherBox?

Options for expanding the local recording capacity of your TetherBox

Roman Gaufman avatar
Written by Roman Gaufman
Updated over a week ago

Introduction

TetherX provide a hybrid system that allows you to independently record locally and/or to the cloud. The TetherBox unit is designed to have enough recording capacity locally to last through even a prolonged Internet outage and otherwise you choose how much capacity you need by either:

  1. Subscribing to the Cloud Recording package of choice.

  2. Connecting External Storage to your TetherBox to increase the local capacity.

Depending on your requirements, you may wish to just keep 1 week of local footage and store a month in the cloud (for example to ensure no footage is lost during Internet outages). Conversely, you may want to record a lot of footage locally and opt to have no cloud recording at all. TetherX fully support both options.

Checking your Current Recording Capacity

You can check your present recording capacity by logging into your Timeline, clicking on “Admin” in the top right corner and clicking on “TetherBoxes”. You will see all of your units and their vital stats. The column “Est Capacity” shows the estimated recording capacity of the unit, for example: “2 months”.

If you tap on the TetherBox name to view more details about your TetherBox, you can also see the capacity in the Storage tab and detailed information about every storage device connected to your TetherBox.

How much Local Capacity should I Expect

If you have a typical situation with some low motion and some higher motion cameras, you should expect anywhere from 2 to 4 weeks recording capacity out of the box depending on the amount of motion.

If you have an environment where you have high bitrate and/or continuous motion on, the recording capacity can drop to 1 week or even lower.

Why Local Recording Capacity Can Drop

If you have one of our cloud packages, you will always get exactly the number of days you need. Unfortunately this is not possible with local recording as you are limited by the hardware connected to your unit.

If your unit started out with a higher local recording capacity, but this dropped over time there could be a number of reasons for this:

  1. There is something that is causing the cameras to record more, e.g. spider web build up, shorter days causing noisier low light recording, the scene getting busier (e.g. events/holidays), etc.

  2. New cameras were connected to the system causing more footage to be recorded.

  3. The camera settings were changed to record at higher quality, causing the same amount of recording to take up more space.

If any recent changes to the system were made, or if you observe things like spider web build up, it is worth cleaning the cameras and undoing any changes to see if this resolves your issue.

How to Increase Capacity

There are 2 main ways of increasing local capacity, 1 has an associated cost and 1 does not:

Option 1: Adding External Storage or Subscribing to Cloud

  1. External Storage: You can Connect External Storage to your TetherBox
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  2. Adding Cloud Storage: We have cloud packages allowing you to backup your footage: TetherX Cloud Packages
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Option 2: Making Configuration Changes

  1. Reducing Recording Quality - Under the “Admin” interface, click on “Cameras”, you will see a list of all your cameras. You can Tunnel to the Camera and adjust the resolution, frame-rate and bitrate. Lowing these will increase the local recording capacity of the unit. Please refer to your camera manual for instructions how to adjust stream settings.
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  2. Setting up Camera Masking - Under the “Admin”, click on “Cameras” and edit each camera. Click on the “Mask” tab to access camera masking. Draw around the areas you wish the system to ignore. This can significantly increase your recording capacity.


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