Available functionality depends on the system you are using. See the Product comparison chart for more information.
With dynamic archiving paths, you specify a number of different archiving paths, usually across several drives. Milestone recommends using dynamic paths, which also is the default setting when you configure cameras through the Configure video & recording wizard.
If the path containing the camera's database is on one of the drives you have selected for dynamic archiving, your system always tries to archive to that drive first. If not, your system automatically archives to the archiving drive with the most available space at any time, provided a camera database is not using that drive.
The drive that has the most available space may change during the archiving process, and archiving may happen to several archiving drives during the same process. This does not have impact on how users find and view archived recordings.
Dynamic archiving paths are general for all your cameras. You cannot configure dynamic archiving paths for individual cameras.
When deciding which drives to use for dynamic archiving, consider the pros and cons in the following examples (in which we assume that the default archiving path is on drive C:—drive letters are examples only, different drive letters may of course be used in your organization):
If the path containing the camera's database is on one of the drives you have selected for dynamic archiving, your system tries to archive to that drive first. Archiving takes place quickly, but may also fill up the drive with data fairly quickly.
Recordings and archives are on separate drives. Archiving takes place less quickly. Your system will first temporarily store the archive in the local default archiving directory on C:, then immediately move the archive to the archiving location on D:. Therefore, you need sufficient space to accommodate the temporary archive on C:.
Avoid this. One camera's archiving may take up space required for another camera's recordings. In the above example, Camera 1's archiving to D: may result in no recording space for camera 2 on D:. The rule is: "Do not cross recording and archiving drives."
If you use several surveillance servers in a master/slave setup, each surveillance server must archive to its own mapped location in order for archiving to work. If you attempt to archive to the same mapped location for all the servers, archiving fails.
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