Within each disk group, you can free up storage space for new video files.
What you should know
There are different ways to free up storage space for video files. Using a combination of
the following strategies can help to maximize the available storage:
- Delete the oldest video files when available disk space gets low. This strategy is
recommended if most of your video footage is equally important, and you want to keep as
much footage as possible. This maximizes disk usage.
- Set archiving retention periods for cameras to specify the amount of time that
recorded footage must be kept online. Video is automatically deleted at the end of the
retention period. This strategy keeps more important video footage for a longer
period.
- Limit the size and length of video files. If you protect many short video sequences
from deletion, limiting the size of your video files can help to optimize your storage
use.
- Limit the disk storage space allocated to protected video files; they are not
automatically deleted during normal cleanup procedures.
IMPORTANT: Archiving stops when disk space runs out. It is highly
recommended to align your file retention strategies with the available storage space. Only
deleting files when storage is full can impact archiving performance.
To free up storage space for video files:
-
Open the Video task, and select the Archiver or Auxiliary Archiver
to configure.
-
Click the Resources tab, and click Advanced
settings.
-
In the Advanced settings windows, set the following options as
required:
- Set Delete oldest video files when disks are full to
ON.
- Set Protect video threshold to the maximum percentage of
storage space that protected video files can occupy on disk.
When this threshold is
exceeded, the Archiver generates a Protected video threshold exceeded event
every 15 minutes, so you can review the video files and delete the ones that are no
longer needed. The Archiver does not delete protected files.
- In the Video files section, set the following:
- The Maximum length for video sequences, in minutes.
- The Maximum size of video files. Select
Specific, and set a maximum size, in megabytes.
-
After configuring the advanced settings, click .
To set a retention period for video stored by an Archiver or Auxiliary
Archiver:
-
In the Video task, select an Archiver or Auxiliary Archiver in the
role entity tree and do one of the following:
- For an Archiver role, click the Camera default settings
tab.
- For an Auxiliary Archiver role, click the Camera recording
tab.
-
Set Automatic cleanup to the required number of days, and click
Apply.
To set a retention period for a specific camera:
-
In the Video task, expand the role entity tree, and select the
camera.
This is helpful for cameras that have more important video footage.
TIP: You might want to set a shorter retention period for PTZ cameras, because they often
use more storage due to the increased movement.
-
Click the Recording tab.
-
If Recording settings is set to Inherit from
Archiver, switch it to Custom settings.
-
Set Automatic cleanup to the required number of days, and click
Apply.
